The Ottyssey
by Kitt Otter
Summary: After a freak accident involving a tongue and a voltmeter, I find myself facedown in Arda dirt, in the body of a water-weasel. And with nothing better to do, I take on the burden of making the Fellowship’s lives miserable.
1. Raise Hands: Who Else Has Days Like This

_A/N: __ This is an answer to Dúnedain Ranger of the North's animal transformation challenge at lotrfanfiction DOT com._

_...A parody of nothing... a self-insert possibly..._

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**Chapter 1: Raise Hands: Who Else Has Days Like This? **

My eyes blurred over my lab report. I had succeeded in drawing an evil smiley face and writing _Maedhros Fëanorion_ fifteen times. I glanced covertly at my partner's neat writing, yawned and gave up. I tried to relocate, but my bottom practically stuck to the stool. I wanted to go home and sleep.

The other pair of girls sharing the table was little more productive than I.

"Touch it," coerced one.

"And get electrocuted?"

"Professor Wong said it's not the volts but the amount of charge… no wait, that's not right… whatever." I began to rub a glass rod with silk, listening to it crackle.

The two girls chattered on over the prospect of being zapped. They'd long since given up on finishing their report before the allotted hour.

"C'mon. Lick it," the first whispered with a smirk.

She pretended to touch the voltmeter's outlet with her tongue. Back turned, the Prof. was writing formulas at lightspeed on the chalkboard, which was not for our benefit; he just liked to do it.

"Chicken."

"Like I want to be carried out on a stretcher," the second folded her arms.

I just had to break in at this point. "The voltage can't hurt you." And I was going to prove it. I think it was my drunkenness from lack of sleep. If I had the choice to go back through time and slap me, I would. Sigh.

Deliberately, I stuck out my tongue and held out the wire of the voltmeter. My partner had stopped with her inscriptions and the other two leaned over. Even a few heads turned from the other tables. Wiggling my eyebrows, I brought the cold metal to mouth and tasted cold acidicness. Huh.

Then I felt a chain of jolts wrack through my body, like my bones were popping one by one. My brain exploded into ribbons. The tables, the faces, the voltmeters were gone.

I moaned and pulled the covers back over my head. Must. Sleep. Ten more minutes. I lightly dozed. Suddenly I thought it was way too bright to be early morning! Had I overslept? I waved my arm out for the clock. Funny, where'd it go? And I don't remember it being so bright in my room. The window should be over THERE. The light shouldn't be… a redness blazes through my closed eyelids… shouldn't be right above me. Weird. Something else was strange. I opened my eyes, instantly regretting from the pain the sudden entry of light brought. THESE aren't my blankets. The bed is… lumpy. I looked at the corner I had snuggled on. It was green, tight fabric… my sweater. I still could not see properly. Some things were so blurry and others so… crisp… it was almost like I could see new color, new texture. Then I inhaled. It almost knocked me backwards. My mind was filled with images of fleeting birds, insects, a fox, almost as though my nose had brought them to me. And dirt, dirt, dirt! My sweater was covered in nasty dirt! Why is my sweater in the dirt? Wait. I look down.

"CHIRRRPPPP!"

I had PAWS! With claws. And little webs between the toes. My body was… Ok, I was always short, but this? I had stubby furry legs. Somehow I felt there was more, like I was getting sensation of ground from somewhere I didn't usually… I looked behind me. I had a tail. A long, fat, paddle-like tail.

I was beyond belief now. This was too much. I was dreaming. It all came back to me! Right now I must be lying on the cold lab floor. Knowing the Prof, he wouldn't call the ambulance; no, he couldn't waste the opportunity to demonstrate the effect electric shocks have on the human body. I'd just have to wait it out.

Suddenly I smelled – yes – smelled the fox. Not that I ever before knew what a fox SHOULD smell like… Time to go! I rummaged through my clothes and found my watch, my Scapular medal and wrapped both around my tail. My glasses would not fit, so there I left them. That parting was painful.

I tried to run to where I somehow, through smell again, I guess, knew there'd be water. But I fell hard onto my nose, which seemed abnormally broad. Right! I am some four-legged animal now! I tried running again with front paws included, and after some stumbling, waddled to the water.

I resisted the urge to dive headlong in. By its massive currents, it had to be a river. Then again, I was short, so my judgment could have been warped. Regardless, there was something I needed to know. I crawled along the bank and found a smooth patch and peered over. A round face of fluff looked back at me. It had beady eyes, a black nose taking up about a third of the face, a wide mouth with long whiskers curling down. I knew what it was. I always wanted to see one in person and never had till then. An otter. I was an otter. Holy shoes; well, I'd had stranger dreams. I was just lucky this was not one of my painful ones, you know, falling off the Alps, being made into a pincushion by spears, and so on.

I reached my paw idly into the mud. To my horror I found a struggling crayfish and ate it.

Again I looked into to the water. I admit, the fur was quite flattering, but when I bent to examine it better, my image rippled into chaotic nothing. What gives? Suddenly I heard a rumble like an approaching train. The river began to recede. Then I felt the ground shake and smelt the approach of tired, sweating… horses. I stood on my back legs and looked over the weeds.

And I thought things couldn't get weirder.

There was Frodo, honest to Manwë, Frodo Baggins on a white horse, Asfaloth, it had to be. They were on my bank; the hobbit was putting up a resistance, a valiant speech, the whole gig, to the… I emitted some sort of bark and dived onto the earth.

B-black Riders were out there! I wanted to cry.

Then I heard a horrible rumble and even more terrible screeches. It felt like my organs were being grated on a cheese shredder. All went still. I lifted my wonderfully long neck again; Frodo was senseless in the mud and Asfaloth was nipping at some floppy weed. I cautiously approached.

Well, so I knew he wasn't going to die, but, come on, I couldn't just let him lie there, green skinned and all that. Not knowing the first thing about CPR, I did the next best thing: I beat him on the head with my versatile paddle-of-a-tail.

He groaned. I brought my face close to his. Definitely in need of toothpaste. I backed off a bit when his eyes suddenly flickered open. The movie did not even come close to the reality of this boy's piercing gaze. It was like he could look into your soul.

"A..." he rasped. "A-n otter. So…" I wished he would stop trying to talk. He looked as though his face would peel off any minute. "So… CUTE!"

Before I could step back again, he had yanked me off my paws into an embrace. Then he jumped up, still holding tight. "I'm totally cured!"

At that very moment an amazingly good-looking blondie who could only be Glorfindel, Strider, and the hobbits splashed through the ford. They were looking at Frodo with, oh, how can I describe it, jaws hanging to their belts.

"Well met, everyone. This is my friend; she aided me in my flight. Will there be food in Rivendell, master Glorfinkle?"

'Finkle' drew his sword and Aragorn his sword hilt. "Frodo, back! It may be a servant of the enemy!"

"SHUT UP." Frodo stomped his foot, and they dropped their weapons.

That settled it. Everyone else was both too tired and too shocked to care about the Ringbearer's OOCness and we (I was carried, special me) trudged to the Valley.

Turns out Frodo really was cured and not a smidgen of Morgul-trash remained in his system. Even the knife-splinter had disappeared. The others, however, required intensive care to pop their jaws back into their sockets.

I could go on and on and on about the many meetings there and how Gandalf in real life DOES smell like old man, but I'll skip to the Council.


	2. Important Stuff Happens Here

**Chapter 2: Important Stuff Happens Here **

What is there to say? I was in a patio full of super hot Elves but was stuck between a liver-spotted old hobbit and a wizard who really could use a new deodorant. Frodo held me in a vice-grip, as though Sauron would burst through the door, tackle me, and dunk me in boiling oil… bleh, that's not a happy thought. I'm an optimist, you see.

Well, so we sat, and sat, and sat while Elrond gave hopelessly boring introductions – whoever son of whosit of the land of whocares – of everyone around the sitting ring. I was half-surprised he didn't make them say their favorite color and superhero along with the other bunk.

Finally, extending his becurtained arm, the half-Elf got down to the core issues.

"Bring forth the Ring, Frodo."

"Can't I bwing forth this instead?" Fro held up snuggly me and the collection of free peoples _ahhed_.

"Mayn't I hold it?" implored Boromir, man of Gondor.

"Take me into your arms? Yes you may, you burly, stubble-chinned man, you," was my thought, however, Elrond cleared his throat so loudly it had the same effect as of the passing of gas and everyone fell into embarrassed silence.

Then Boromir stirred again. "It is said in my country 'the red otter will herald the coming doom'."

"And here, Boromir, your riddles will be answered," Elrond droned.

I rolled my beady eyes.

Herr Tolkien said himself he didn't tell everything in his Council chapter, and by the Kleenex of Nienna, he wasn't kidding. (Hey, all I really wanted to hear was Legolas' Grand Apology and see the distress on his "fair Elven face"). But it was a long way to Leggy, and after the first ten minutes my head was hurting so bad that I shut it all out and took to comparing shoes. Elrond had on these red pointy clogs. It was creepy. Aragorn's boots were caked with a pound of mud. I know he wanted to go with the whole I'm a Ranger thing, but that was a little ridiculous. Erestor might have been wearing tissueboxes. And Legolas… suffice to say his shoes were without flaw.

Bored once more, I looked around at the babbling counselors, people I'd seen time and again in other nightdreams, daydreams, movies, paintings. Pure irksomeness. But Círdan's messenger, now, no one ever pictures him!

Galdor was, and there is no better word for it, _cool._ His dark almost black hair was long and tied back in a loose pony tail. His face was brawny and confident. Around his neck dangled a seashell necklace with a pointy thing on the end of it that was, I am quite sure, a shark tooth. All he needed was a leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses. I really wished he instead of the demented Halfling were holding me.

I didn't hear any of Galdor's talk; I just watched him because I liked the way the muscles in his jaw worked. He'd say what was on his mind and didn't give a Canadian cent to what anyone else thought. When listening to the other's remarks, he'd fall into a good-natured half-grin, or when called for, a contemplative frown. Why is there drool on my keyboard?

Yet for the most part it was Gandalf who did the blabbing, polluting the air with bad breath. Then Aragorn joined in, all about his Gollum quest, wearing a self-satisfied grin. This rapidly melted into an almost comical gape of horror at the voice of Legolas and I realized – curses! – that I missed the fair Elvish face in distress part. Obviously, my attention was rapt on him for about five minutes, until Gandalf restarted his monologue. He was in love with his stale breath, it seemed.

You know the rest. It only got interesting towards the end.

That was when Bilbo stood, offering his services, Boromir almost cracked up, and the Wizard, naturally, took over the conversation again. But this time the topic was me.

He pointed, though that's rude. "It is obvious the Valar sent their servant to us for a purpose." I tried protesting – I' m only a physics student with a big nose and know no stinkin' Valar. Only chirps and barks came out. Gandalf somehow took that as affirmation. "She is to us a sign of hope! Messengers must be sent with the Ring."

Bilbo started to talk about food.

Silence, more silence. It was like being trapped in a stuffy, soundless box. Would he make his move, already? I slapped Frodo's knee with my tail. He flew to his feet.

"I'll take the Ring!" he said, "though I haven't me a pair of shoes."

Elrond spouted something about Beren, Húrin, and Túrin (the latter didn't impress me much), and Sam at last burst from his shadowy corner.

"But you won't send him off alone surely, Master?"

Frodo, unfortunately, spoke first. "Go home, Sam."

Sam's eyes bulged like a frog's, and his skin even turned as clammy as a one. "But, Mr. Frodo, I…"

"I said Go Home."

Geez, what's wrong with you, Frodo, you're messing up the whole story!

Frodo turned away from his near-crumpling gardener and added, "Odi will join me." Yes, that's what he called me. Stop laughing.

The Council was beyond words. Sam ran away, and Frodo did not even notice the impression he was making. Already his onetime faithful servant was forgotten.

Suddenly Galdor stood, facing Elrond. "My lord, I do not believe that this Hobbit is capable of bearing the Ring. Already it seems to have a strong hold; he will not endure the long road to the Dark Land."

Good for you, Gal!

Glorfindel raised his über-fair head. "I must agree…"

"The decision of this Council is final." It was obvious Elrond was trying to save face. "Fate placed the Ring into his hands and in them it must stay."

With a wild hand gesture, Galdor stormed out of the chamber. Another one of those awkward silences. And then everyone went to dinner.

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_A/N: Sorry 'bout that. _


	3. I Hate Camping

**Chapter 3: I Hate Camping**

The window let in the breeze of the absolute most perfect temperature. Every day had just the right amount of mildness. No drippy nostrils or frozen toes did I wake up to. If this was the outcome of global warming, bring it on! I was lying in my cushy basket by the window of Frodo's room, eating a sack of these Elvish pasties, which had the texture of moist sugarcookies, but they tasted somewhere between vanilla, ginger and coconut, except much, much better. I had been given a constant diet of fish the past few weeks by the most generous Elves. But let me tell you, fish for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner gets old. And even Frodo must have been tired of the smell, so he insisted that I get a variety and the greatest of what the Elven cooks had to offer.

A lot and nothing had happened between now and the Council. To recap, Sam had not been seen since. Elrond sent out searchers, and Aragorn, Gandalf and the Hobbits (excluding Frodo) fretted and woed, and still nothing was found of the poor fellow. Both Merry and Pippin were annoyed they had not gotten into the Council, yet when they heard of Sam's disappearance, they forgot to be distraught about their exclusion and began to prod Frodo, one such incidence being just an hour ago, before Frodo left the room to do whatever.

"I still don't believe it, cousin, I don't," Merry shook his head.

"What has gotten into you, Frodo!" Pippin exclaimed. Merry nudged him; obviously he wanted them to be more subtle.

"It's simple as day and night," Frodo picked at his nails, his tone as airy as though he were talking with a nosy 4-year-old. "I was meant to bear the Ring to Mordor. I have to go."

"No, not that!" Pippin blocked Merry's next nudge.

"What we mean, is, have you missed Sam at all?"

"Who?"

"Well, Sam Gamgee, Hamfast's son, who came with us from Hobbiton, you know…"

"Stop talking so loud! Odi's trying to nap."

I hadn't been.

Merry and Pippin frowned as Frodo bent down and uncomfortably lifted me under my forelegs. They put their heads together and whispered rapidly, until the retreating Frodo snapped "And don't talk about me behind my back." They left very soon after.

Anyway, no one had taken Frodo's idea of taking me along seriously. Nor had most taken seriously Frodo's role as Ringbearer. But Frodo's challenge "Try and take it!" was impossible to meet, so they had no choice. Then Elrond wanted to send one of his people, an Elf-dude named Ronald, as the Ninth Walker (Sam being presumed dead and all) but Frodo threw a fit consisting of breaking the Master of Rivendell's collection of Gondolin artifacts. Thus I became the official ninth Fellowship-thingy.

Back on the windowsill, I delicately crunched into my nineteenth pasty, when from the window popped a terrible visage: a beast of tangled and matted fur, crooked snout and bad breath. I yipped and choked on my pasty. I tensed my muscles to dive… Wait, the bad breath… it was only Gandalf. Why can't he use doors like normal people?

The wizard's beard parted with a grin. "Why, hello, Odi. Wonderful day?"

I bared my teeth.

"I was hoping, yes, I was hoping for word…"

Just then Frodo stumped into the room, burdened down with four or five more sacks of pasties, which he dropped one by one as he spotted the wizard in the window.

Gandalf made motions to produce a wily explanation. Not quick enough, though. Frodo's brows curled and his mouth twisted into a sneer. "Out! Out! _Out_! Trouble us no more!" The hobbit nabbed me, spilled my pasties, and Gandalf retreated so swiftly, he toppled backwards and disappeared into the shrubbery.

Gandalf, I noted (and could hardly not considering the odor that emanated from his orifice), ever tried to find me alone. He seemed to lie in wait where ever I might go, jumping from trees, statuaries and washtubs; but whatever his reason to do so, he was ever foiled, for Frodo now hovered – truly hovered from my floor-kissing perspective – over me day and night. Most irritating. How's a beastie to use the otter-box? Seriously.

I admit, though, my curiosity was perked. Why ever Gandalf wanted to talk with me, a pampered pet by all appearances, I did not know. I really half-hoped to hear what he wanted so badly to say. Did he realize that beyond my otter skin, which any French trader would sell his _maman _for, that there was the munificent me? And perhaps I was lonely for some real talk, not Frodo's babble, but real conversation. Inside this body, with this weasel-like jaw, English was not doable. Well, no. They weren't speaking English. It was funny I could understand them in their Common Tongue whatsit. Funny – and I did not understand the full implications of this fact till much, much later.

Am I jumping ahead? There wasn't much to-do about leaving on the Quest. Frodo packed his stuff, evaded his uncle, and left with the others. The end.

And it really sucked, this Questing. It was night when we walked. It was flippin' cold, December air and in mountainous country, no less. The wind that scurried from the mountains stiffened my muscles into boards. All the mollycoddling of Rivendell had weakened my weather immunity to null.

Walking, walking, walking, walking 'long, Walking forever. Always walking. Lalalala. Walk with drama by ROCK. Not that I was walking, not really, well… I was perched on Frodo. Yet that was exhausting. Just you try it.

We finally made our first camp at the crack of dawn. I watched my breath freeze and shatter. The two younger hobbits were doing, I believe, my-toes-are-very-cold dances. Boromir was slapping life back into his frosted face. Despite the arctic conditions, Gandalf wouldn't let us build a fire, the jerk. Like it would just be _funny_ if the Ringwraiths found our frozen bodies lying a day out of Rivendell and just plucked the Ring from Frodo's blue, iced…

Something light and green sat down near me. All cold melted from my limbs. Simply sparkling in starlight was the Elf, humming to himself, smiling about nothing. What a lovable scatter-brain.

Well, there was no Galdor. No Círdan. No Maedhros. Legolas was the next best thing.

I had avoided him in Rivendell. In all my dreams it just didn't work out between us. Either he was too busy killing things or I was too busy being killed. But now, you never know, this dream may be different. And he was an animal lover, right?

I scooted close and cleared my throat. Nothing. I lifted my tail and let it drop with a neat thud. His humming faltered. He looked somewhat bewildered, scanning around, then looked down: my level.

"Hello," said he, wondrously, marvelously. "See how the sun has painted the sky? Her strokes are very fine this morning."

He pointed to the east, where the mountains created a jagged black frame for the glowing violet. He prattled on about sunrises, sunsets, blablabla… I sighed, I fidgeted. Was this jealousy I felt? Really, who cared about dumb old Anor. At last I chirped _do shut up about her and talk about your silly wood-elf fascination with wildlife. _He must have got the gist of it because shut up is what he did.

"You are a strange beast," he said softly. "You hear and understand."

_Now you're catching on!_

"I wonder much what was said by Boromir at the Council, that the red otter will be a herald of doom."

_Yeah, yeah; now what about Us?_

He said nothing. He stretched out his agile fingers, closer, closer to my head… Hey, just get this straight. I ain't that kind of girl. I didn't want to kiss him. I just wanted to marry him. Right. So, his hand was getting closer and closer…

"Odi!"

The perfect hand retracted. I was snatched off my paws. "Odi! I thought you had been taken!" Frodo almost sounded teary. I managed a final peep at the Elf, almost glowing pink now in the sunrise. His right fingers twitched as though he did not know what had just happened. Let's just say I had a strong feeling of _dislike _for the Baggins at that moment.

Monotony was life for the next few days. I was doomed to rot on Frodo's shoulder, to watch the frost-bitten hills slip by. When I wasn't being jarred atop the trotting hobbit, I was on the cold, cruel ground, without a roof or a thermostat or coffee mug. I never got within a cubit of Legolas alone, or within two cubits of Gandalf, who was still trying in his visibly clandestine ways to catch me for "a word." Aragorn, wouldn't you know, was dull. He stayed in the back, offering Ranger's advice here and there. Gimli had little liking for little furry animals, it seemed, though he might have been a second cousin of one. Anyway, I didn't much fancy being mistaken for the ground under his boots, so I made no attempt to get cuddly. Merry and Pippin always had a hard look for me. Whenever our gazes grazed, their faces dropped into frowns.

And yes, Bill had come with us anyhow, since Sam had not taken him to Limbo. I believed Merry and Pippin looked at this as some sort of charm that would lure out the gardener. Between Bill and me there was a mutual understanding from muteness – it was not friendship, exactly. The shared experience was just comforting.

Well, the monotony broke after a few days, when we get down to a lower pack of food on Bill. Merry was digging around in it and gave such a yelp that all of us rushed toward him, believing the pony had eaten off his ear or something.

We found a wide-eyed Merry waving around a handful of colorfully wrapped eatables. "These are all cakes!"

Pippin's eyes lit up, and he and Merry took a sampling. But our strong men, wanting more protein, sifted through the next pack. More Elvish sweets. They poured out the next. Still more bright wrappings. Feverishly, they spilled out sacks and sacks of pasties, till not a bag was left. There was not a single adventurer's staple of bread or sausage or cheese.

Everyone looked at Frodo. They may as well stared at an Ent for all the reaction they got. Needless to say, I was keeping really low.

Sensible Gimli rumbled: "We cannot survive on this!"

All eyes went to Gandalf, who wearily bowed his head. "But we cannot turn back. If we return to Rivendell, we shall not leave it again. The Quest will be forfeited."

Thus devoid of real nourishment, did we go on and on and on. Our bowel movements were irregular. The mountains remained steady on our side, and after many long monologues as to why, Gandalf steered us toward them, forcing us up steeper and steeper hills. I had dreaded this. Why did the _action! _parts have to start so soon? Stupid Caradhras. So far I had been a passive enough companion. But now I would have to take charge.

Don't get me wrong. I love mountains! The Alps of Bavaria, the Appalachians of Virginia… oh, yes, they're nice to climb, but still, I HATED heights. Don't I always fall from mountains in dreams? (And this was a dream). So, of course, I'd fall off that ledge on Caradhras. That made me want to vomit.

It was one of the toughest decisions I ever had to make. On one paw I'd get to hear Legolas speak his legendary Caradhras lines, which I recite here: _"An __**OTTER**__ for swimming, but for running swiftly over grass or snow – an Elf" _followed by that glorious smirk, spreading over his wonderful face.

"_If music be the food of love, then play on_!" I pinched my tail. Well, on the other paw, I'd avoid the whole mess of nightmarish blizzards, deadly cold and paranormal avalanches that we would suffer through for no reason anyway. With a deep exhalation, I made my choice.

I peeped behind me. Boromir was following close. Perfect. Bracing, I flew straight off Frodo's shoulder, right into the Gondorian's face. He cussed something pretty and slapped me off. I clung to his shirt with my claws and inched my way to his back. One smack of my tail and I had his shield's strap undone. I clung on with all four paws as the shield hit the dirt, sliding with escalating momentum downhill.

Weeeee!


	4. Make It So

**Chapter 4: Make it So**

Captain's log, stardate 3210.7. The Enterprise has picked up a strange distress signal, but it is weak and so far we have been unable to pin down its location. Our science officer, Mr. Spock, believes he can amplify the signal, though so far he has had little success.

"Captain!" Uhura spun in her seat. "The intensity is increasing. I think I can make out words…"

"Put it on speakers."

Uhura flipped a switch. Around us buzzed static and bleeps, then faintly, faintly, a pattern became evident: "Meessaaa. Meeessaaa. Meeessaaa."

The crewmen stole glances at each other. I signaled to Uhura to shut it off and turned to the science officer.

"Well, Spock?"

"I could not decipher a meaning, captain, but undoubtedly it is some form of communication."

I yawned. "You're so funny."

"Thank you, Captain, though I do not believe that was a logical statement, given the nature of our conversation."

A great warning _blip_ came from Uhura's station. "Captain!" She spun again, this time all her features lined in alarm. "There's been an exponential increase…" At exactly the same time the whole ship rocked. I fell off my chair. Spock fell somewhere under it.

"Can't you _drive_, Mr. Sulu?" I clutched my bruised humorus.

Sulu looked back and bowed his head in sorrow. "Sorry, Captain, I - " He never finished. In the momentary distraction of her helmsman, the Enterprise rammed into a spacepole. Luckily I was still on the floor, but this time everyone else fell onto his or her or its or herhisits back. The whole bridge went dark. I fumbled for a convenient button. "Scotty?"

"Aye, Captain? Couldna'a call back later? We're showin' those new Leprechaun recruits aboot and…"

"But you're not Irish." I frowned.

"Well, I'll be derned!"

I cleared my throat. "Now, Mr. Scot, why haven't you installed seatbelts yet?"

Uncomfortable silence at the other end, broken when Scotty _ahemed_. "I was just goin' ta tell ya, Captain, the life-supports have clean shut off. The backup systems too."

"Ok! Odi out." I was thinking about half-Vulcans.

"Captain," Spock seemed to have extracted himself from the chair. "Someone is beaming aboard."

My dazed grin vanished. "Inconceivable!"

Red emergency lights had come on, and there on the crimson bridge a beam of light sparkled and materialized into some floppy creature. For a second it stood perfectly still – then with a jerk, its long tongue lolled, its ears twitched, and its eyes, drooping and wild, rolled towards toward the captain's seat.

"Mesa has axe. Yousa wanna play wid moi?" The Gungon sprang toward the chair and Spock intercepted, crunching him with his most lethal neck pinch. The bothersome creature went rigid. We all sighed. Then in an eyeblink the Gungon sprang back to life and hacked his axe into Spock. Six or so phasors went off at once and Jar Jar was nothing.

My white bedroom dresser popped onto the bridge and Dr. McCoy burst from the top drawer. He scurried over to the half-Vulcan.

He lifted his brows to me. "He's dead, Odi." And McCoy scampered back into the dresser.

Suddenly the ship was tipping and I was slipping, slipping, and, of course, falling from the Alps onto the gravely glassier debris below.

I opened my eyes before I was crunched. Two inches away were two dark openings, like some sort of monstrous snout. The snout retreated and focused into a way too familiar face.

"ALIVE!" Frodo's screech was an unwelcome hammer against my pounding head.

Ok. If I'm dreaming now, why am I having dreams _in _it? Because that last one was definitely a dream with the Alps thing. I am bruised all over and not waking from Middle-earth. Not waking. Holy shoes. What madness is this? I don't take pills or nothing.

I could not deny any more that I was simply dreaming. I had really given up that idea long before, but never admitted it. After all, how many people dream of sitting for hours on the Last Homely House's floor, counting cracks? No; I knew I was in a coma. I could see myself, lying betubed in a hospital bed, in the company of wilted flowers. Sigh. By now I hope I don't wake up till summer. Then I can just start all my course work afresh fall semester.

Frodo squeezed me in his rapturous glee. I really wished I could imagine being in a comatose state in a coma. Ooch. Owe.

"You found our small friend. Good work, Frodo!" Gandalf shuffled from behind a rotted tree.

Frodo didn't answer. I had resigned to having my bones crushed.

The others slowly trudged their way over. Gimli found the pitiful remains of Boromir's shield and offered it to the man, who snatched it with a seething scowl, which I could not help but feel pierce my skull. The hobbits sat on the dirt and groaned. Aragorn and Legolas, ever rolling their eyes around in search of peril, brought up the rear with the pony.

Pippin, rubbing a swollen foot, said conversationally, "There were dozens of them, giant monstrous crows. Flew right over our heads, didn't they, Merry?"

"Did they see you?" said Aragorn sharply.

Pippin shrugged, but saw he needed to better address Aragorn's look of horror. "I'm sorry Strider, but they were just a pack of birds…"

Aragorn continued to look scandalized.

Then said Pippin: "Gandalf, it's been hours. Are we going to camp?"

"No."

Whined Merry: "Well, then, where are we going? We're not going back up the mountain, are we?"

"Of course not!" The wizard wagged his beard.

"Then where are we going?"

The others stared at Gandalf; Gimli alone had a salient look, of a kid who knows he'll get that new gaming station before he asks.

"Moria, Master Took." Gandalf nodded, all sagacity of the Maiar upon him. "This was a sign. It was no accident that brought Odi to us. This is the Valar's will." Holy shoes. Me in cahoots with the Valar. C'mon.

Legolas' jaw dropped. Gimli almost squealed. The others still looked perplexed. Well, not Aragorn. He opened his mouth, "Gandalf, if you pass the doors of Moria, beware -"

I cut him off with a squeak and, leaping off of Frodo, waddled further downhill.

I had not gone far enough to miss Boromir's grumble: "Are we truly trusting our lives to this… rodent?"

Next moment there was crash and a yelp. I turned around, not believing what I was seeing. Frodo was on top of Boromir, giving him full fist. Boromir seemed only too ready to do likewise, but Aragorn and Legolas pinned him down while stout Gimli, hampered somewhat by the 'help' of Merry and Pippin, tore off Frodo.

"Never again… never say… anything… about Odi…" Frodo was hissing, fighting with all his might to escape Gimli's iron hold.

Wincing through a puffy eyelid, Boromir trembled in rage, still held between Aragorn and Legolas. "This is folly, Gandalf! We cannot enter the Mines! It is sure death! Let us take the Gap…"

It was that instant I smelt it. Bill smelt it. We looked at each other and as one voiced our most high pitched animalian noises. Everyone froze. Legolas gasped, suddenly pricking his ears as it were, and darted his bright eyes along the darkening landscape.

"Something approaches!"

Right on cue, about two-dozen creatures howled in the distance.

"Wolves!" cried Aragorn, quickly on page.

"See, Boromir." Gandalf always had to have to last word. "Isengard bars the way south. We can only escape the eyes of the enemy's servants by taking the Mines. Make haste!"

We hastened. Gandalf thought he knew the way and didn't and we turned all around again. Meanwhile the howls were becoming more loud and taunting. They seemed to come from all sides. For a while we seemed to be hopelessly lost, until Gimli tripped into the dried bed of the Gate -stream, and along this we hastened some more. The sky was pinkening before the coming sun by the time we reached the Lake. We all were panting, tongues drooping out.

Gandalf looked like he would snap his stick, so hard was he leaning on it. "Lake… should not… here… be… but around it… make…"

"Haste!" said Pippin; his energy seemed to return with an actual goal in sight.

I dare say, Legolas thought this whole running-till-mortals-die-of-exhaustion thing was funny up till that moment. Maybe he was thinking Gandalf was only joking about going to Moria. But here we were, and he was one sad-looking Elf. He lagged behind with Bill. Leading the way were Gimli and Pippin.

_Aha! _At last my chance to be alone and so perfectly situated to be with an Elf in need of comfort, which only a small cuddly animal can provide… I silently slipped off Frodo's drooping shoulder and gamboled four-leggedly toward the Elf's shoes. I chirped _'ello_. Bill snorted. Legolas grinned…

Must have been the direction of the wind because none of us smelt them coming. Even Legolas knew only a split second before. Two wolves dropped dead from his bow before he nabbed me by my scruff and made a break for it, yelling to the Company at the top of his lungs. Dangling like a wad of laundry was not exactly romantic… often had I envisioned scenarios such as this, but they had involved more of a sweeping off my feet thing. I am not sure whether it was because they saw Legolas held a pointy object or because they liked the smell of the Elvish sweets, the wolves tore after poor Bill. We got just enough time to scramble with the others to the Wall.

We turned to its blank stone face and saw that we had a teeny problem. No ithildin was to be seen. Gandalf didn't know the password. And the hellish wolves were inching closer, their fangs flashing in malevolent grins. Drat. Where's Scotty when ya need him?

* * *

_A/N: I miss Spock._


	5. To Kill Two Birds with One Stone

**Chapter 5: To Kill Two Birds with One Stone**

The wolves approached slowly. The fine men had their weapons drawn, but we were quite nicely trapped and death seemed the most probable outcome. We couldn't fight that many. We needed time. We had to get into Moria. I gnawed my claws. Why do I have to come up with ideas?

The beasts charged. Bones cracked. Blood splattered. Fur flew. I had backed up to the Wall and tried to support my joints turned to playdough. Trying to look anywhere except the blood-bath, I noticed that the locker room-reeking lake was getting… bubbly. Then, like in that horror movie with the killer hand, a tentacle tiptoed out – and right flippin' toward me. I pressed flat to the Wall while it sqooshed and squelched nearer and way too nearer… Manwë's Blowdryer! That's _nasssty_!

I happened to glance to my right and left and felt momentarily cheery 'cause there was a cool, antiquated tree on either side of me.

Wait a minute.

I turned around and smacked the Wall with my forepaws. _Open! Open! Mellon! Please!_ I looked behind and saw not one but three tentacles slithering around the rocks. _Eww! Ewwww!_ I lifted a stone with my nifty toes and crunched the tip right off the nearest. Hehe. The dismembered end flipped and twitched. The tentacles seemed to hesitate before throwing themselves forward with a vengeance. They battered and tore into the Wall in their blind attempts to get at their mutilator. I ran in circles, somehow avoiding falling rocks. I heard renewed shouts from the Company, running and more squelching as more of Squidward joined in to thrash the Wall.

After that, I don't know what happened. One second Frodo was screeching behind me. Next the whole world was tumbling down. _"In! Inside!" _Someone screamed. I was thrown, then crushed. Everything was dark and I couldn't breathe. A terrible, endless BOOM filled my whole head. Then there was a terrible silence.

"I-is anyone alive?" came Merry's shaky voice.

"I think so!" said Pippin's.

"Bless you, Hobbit!" groaned Gimli.

"I am pleased your power of speech has not been damaged, Master Dwarf!" laughed Legolas. "Aragorn?"

"I am here. Boromir? Is that you?"

"It is." Boromir spat out rubble.

"And that makes – how many?" said Gandalf. I could just picture him trying to count on his fingers. "The Ringbearer! Frodo! Frodo!" The whole Company chimed in and beat around in the dust.

"Shut UP!" Frodo sat maybe a foot away from me. He seemed intact, anyway, he was doing something to his face, and I dearly hoped that was not inside his nose.

"Is the otter with you?" Gandalf's voice was a mix of relief and trepidation.

"Duh!"

"Good, good! That makes…" the wizard counted his fingers. "Eight – and then me." He fumbled around in his robes for a moment and suddenly there was light!

AHHH!

After the initial blindness, Aragorn had us all line up and treated our lacerations, which were surprisingly few and minor. That done, we decided we definitely deserved some food. It was then that we discovered all the food had been left on Bill. The younger Hobbits actually shed tears. Fleetingly, I wished been squashed in the Gate's collapse. But we had to bite down on our despair (better than nothin') because the only way now to get some eatables – maybe even non-sugary ones and that thought was exciding – was to go forward.

Gandalf at last cracked out his secret Miruvor, and each of us took a great gulp. We trekked onward. The elvish liquor reacted strangely in our empty stomachs, so many weeks filled with naught but sweets, and this was manifested noisily when we hit the stretch of path riddled with bottomless pits:

The air reverberated with his quick footfalls. Legolas was dashing toward a crack, towing Pippin, whose arms were spread wide like wings. The Elf threw him and jumped directly after. "Catch me!" yelled Pippin to nobody. They fell into a heap on other side, laughing. Merry already had had his turn, and laughed hardest of all as the other two missed crushing his head by inches.

Legolas called over. "Frodo, do you wish to be next? Or you, Dwarf?"

Gimli looked snubbed, yet he backed up for a run and jumped. In mid-leap a giant grin spread under his beard and he sang aloud: "I'm Kiiiing of Khazaaad!" He smacked down on the opposite ledge.

Then said Pippin's voice from the distant dark: "Oooh! Legolas, look! Another chasm!"

"Yes!" shrilled Merry. Already we could hear Legolas running and the flying Merry's ecstatic shriek.

Boromir pointed wildly across the gorge to the unseen source of their echoing laughter. "They are mad." He swung his finger back at us. "All of you are_ mad_."

Aragorn gripped both his shoulders. "Calm yourself, Boromir!"

The Gondorian flung off Aragorn's hands. "This company is consumed by madness. Just look at the Halflings! First Frodo, now the other two with the Elf, then the Dwarf. Who's next? Who's next…?"

Gandalf pounded his staff on the stones with a thud that echoed eerily from the invisible ceiling. "Quiet, all of you! Aragorn, go after the others and tell them wait for me _silently_.Boromir, get Frodo and Odi across."

Frodo scowled. "I don't want to go with _him_." I had to agree. I didn't think he had forgotten about his shield.

The wizard sighed so loud that dust from somewhere overhead toppled into our faces.

In the end, Aragorn helped Frodo and me – I shut my eyes the whole time, as though it mattered in the oreo-ific darkness – and three chasms later, we were across to where the Hobbits, Dwarf, and Elf were waiting, flushed and still tipsy.

Gandalf sternly cleared his throat and began a pep-talk. "Listen to me – do stop frolicking, Master Took!" He again cleared his throat. "Yes, my friends, the Company has had difficulties, met with danger, but we knew it would be so when we set out. Keep first in your minds the Quest. Don't give into despair. We will be out soon if you all are _quiet_ and let me think. Otherwise we shall _not _be getting out."

My stomach rumbled. I'd give my tail for a cricket. Mmmm. Crickets… my tongue fell from my mouth and dripped drool. I wondered what time it was. Oh yes! My watch! Did it still work? More importantly, was the fake leather edible? I turned to my tail and pinched the dial. The face glowed pale green. I happened to glance up and saw other circular green glows not far away. Curious. What was it reflecting from? The face darkened before I had time to read the hands. I made ready to press it again, but noticed that the green reflections had not faded with the watch and were, in fact, getting closer like they were sliding down a pole. I suddenly had this feeling of being sniffed out as a snack. In one instant everything clicked into place. _HOLY SHOES!_

Everyone came running. I guess I looked a little insane, jumping, chittering, waving my paws. The green lamps had gone, of course. I wasn't fooled. Who_ else_ could that be? But these guys had no idea. I thought I could try, anyway, and so, facing mostly Legolas, Aragorn and Gandalf, I made slinking motions, tried to gurgle in my throat and held out my paw to stroke an invisible ring. Their lips were parted and eyes wide. Ain't working. Boromir was nodding, but only out of satisfaction that his madness theory was confirmed. Gandalf decided we all needed a break.

I moaned. Noooo break. Want out. We sat in the dark miserably for hours, hungry, thirsty and listless. Heaven knows nothing makes me more disagreeable than an empty stomach. I snapped Frodo's hand as he triedto lift me into his lap and was sadistically satisfied by his _ow!_

A wearisome time later, we set out once more. The younger Hobbits soon needed support by the men. Gimli dragged his boots.

We stumbled maybe an hour before we hit the guardroom with the three passages. I rolled my eyes as Gandalf paused and went down the right tunnel. Even Boromir wasn't complaining at this point. I had heard him muttering _more gravy_ in his sleep.

Well, then, le's get outta this stinkin' pit.

When, countless hours later, our bearded leader thought we could use another break, I leaped and hissed and nipped his ankles, till he was forced down the path. Why prolong the misery? Out, out, out. No pauses! Wimps. C'mon! We don't need water! Food is for wusses! Doubt not that also the goblins, Balrog, and Gollum were on my mind. Maybe if we went fast enough, we'd miss 'em.

We finally reached the great, creepy openness of Dwarrowdelf. Everyone was wilting. Gandalf gave us the last drops of the miruvor, which seemed to blast fire through our limbs, giving us just enough_ umf_ to raise our eyes to the… whatever was hidden in the blackness. Sooo close to getting out! The Company's lethargy was so extreme a side trip seemed synonymous to suicide, yet I was ready to do anything to avoid Balin's tomb. I didn't need to. It must have been that we were there at night because no sunlight filtered into that room and we passed it quite obliviously.

Doodadoo. Through halls, under arches, down a million stairs, hip hop over holes in the floor. We were getting along quite nicely.

As we fell out of another archway and as Gandalf spewed "Behold, the Second Hall," the floor rattled. We had one common instinct and that was to RUN – and as we did a crack appeared in the floor ahead, growing, smoke billowing out of it. We leaped as one. Just as we cleared it, the fissure opened fully and barfed red heat. We panted, flat against the floor. Man, that was cool.

"Not much farther now," said Gandalf, using his gift for the anticlimax and lifting himself by his staff. We marched warily across the hall. My ears were wholly perked; I bit my tongue at each breath of the Company, at every falling pebble. We had come too far and seen too little of the inhabitants. I dreaded with each sound that the next would be _doom, doom_. If I ever wanted the maggots scared from me that was the LotR passage I read.

_Doom, doom, doom. _

"What was that?" said Merry.

Oh poo.

Gandalf turned around and an arrow appeared in his hat. Maybe a bazillion goblins surrounded us and began a-hacking. Well, that shouldn't have been a surprise. We hadn't exactly been considerate, noiseless visitors. I instantly removed myself to the back of a rock. The pummeling was getting pretty intense. I risked a tiny peep.

Wow. Who knew gore was so… messy. I felt the miruvor revolt against me. Frodo bounded over from nowhere, shrieking: "Everyone STOP! ODI'S NOT FEELING GOOD!" The whole room plunged into silence; even the goblins stood motionless, like gaping gargoyles.

And then there was none. The goblins, I mean. They just picked themselves up and vanished. Was my being sick so ghastly?

A suffocated heat. A light-sapping darkness. And something was standing behind us.

Legolas and Gimli screamed, would ya believe, screamed like second-grade girls, Gimli jumping into Legolas' arms and Legolas falling onto his bottom. Merry and Pippin tried to run and tripped on the two fallen warriors. Aragorn and Boromir swung their blades forward, but they themselves swayed on the spot. Gandalf alone stepped forward. He mouthed for us to run and shouted to the big, bad shadow: "STAY, demon! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of -"

_Kasplat!_ Gandalf was batted maybe twenty feet and hit some pillar. The Balrog took a mountain-shaking step forward. Ok. Now we ran. Aragorn and Legolas picked up the wizard by his arms. Pippin nabbed Gandalf's glowing staff and took the lead. As I tried to scramble for it, I felt a hard hit to my middle. Through watering eyes, I saw beside me Boromir, flat on his face, cursing. Why couldn't he watch where he was tripping…! Frodo swept me away. I watched Boromir scramble to his feet to stand, stand alone as the Balrog towered over him. He raised his sword, the Balrog his whip. Gimli, jogging heartily beside us, blubbered: "A brave, brave sacrifice."

The rest was a blur. Not even the Bridge of Stupendous Narrowness put an indent in my memory. We were tired, hungry, depressed, bleeding, exhausted, dead. We collapsed outside the East Gate. We basked in mindless thankfulness in the warm morning sun.

Gandalf stirred and lost no time in bathing us with his maw's perfume. "Frodo," he murmured. The Hobbit approached and Gandalf looked him over. "Frodo, you are not hurt? Good. Very good… Frodo, how is the Ring?"

For a moment, Frodo seemed to return to normal; his eyes melted of their hardness and his face lost its insane lines. He gasped and frantically felt about his neck.

Though barely above a whisper, his voice was high and panicked. "I – I think I left it in Rivendell…"


	6. Gonna Eat Till I Can't Eat No More

_A/N: Warning for Amputations and Graphic Gluttony._

* * *

**Chapter 6: Gonna Eat Till I Can't Eat No More**

I pressed my paw to my muzzle. I wanted to be sick again. Frodo was feeling wildly around his shirt and abruptly his hand came to rest.

"No. No, wait!" Frodo took a deep breath and began smiling. "It's here. It was here the whole time, Gandalf. Gandalf?"

The wizard had passed out again.

"Legolas," Aragorn murmured. "Is anyone hurt?"

"Not real bad, Strider," said Pippin. He started to snore.

"I think we need rest, Aragorn." Legolas gave him a worried, skeptical look. "Are you also unhurt?"

"We must soon be off. The Orcs may pursue us yet. Good fortune that it is morning! Legolas, go ahead, to Lothlórien. Find help. We may need it."

"But Aragorn-?"

"Quickly! We will follow as soon as we are able."

The Elf left at a run. Gimli snorted. "If indeed any help_ can _come from those woods." The dwarf grumbled some more before turning to Aragorn. "Uh, Aragorn?" The man's head had sagged. Gimli jumped up in alarm. I could see, even through my misty vision, his whole right side was a gory mess.

The Ranger stirred, his voice soft and measured. "Gimli, start a fire. Boil athelas… I have it here. Then heat your axe… the poison is strong, it is spreading…" Aragorn lifted his face closer to the dwarf. "Then Gimli, you must _cut off my arm_."

"Nooo…ooo!" Gimli ripped his beard.

I think I fainted.

The smell was lurvely: fresh and breezy. The sound was soft and persistent, like a song. I didn't want to wake and spoil the effect. Yet I had an itch in my memory that I could not satisfy, that danger was right on our tails. Sorta.

Oh, if I absolutely must get up… But I was a bruise. When I tried to twitch my tail, it was like trying to bend an iron rod.

"Odi!" Frodo, no surprise.

A strange hooded Elf whispered urgently: "Quiet..."

"You be quiet!"

"Please, Master Hobbit, the goblins are near." The Elf looked exhausted. I had a feeling he'd been dealing with Frodo the whole time from… whenever. What happened?

Quite similar to twisting the stiff joins of an action figure, I slowly forced my legs upright. I gave Frodo's arm a hug to keep him happy and soon as I was able, I slipped from his grasp. We were on a railess platform perched in cupping branches – undeniably a flet. Cool. The rest of the Company lay about. Merry and Pippin sat huddled together, gnawing on something, likely bark. Gimli, tense and shifty-eyed, looked like dragon in an aquarium. And Aragorn… he lay immobile, but soft light reflected from his open eyes. He was draped in a blanket, and I could not tell if he was still in one piece. Legolas was nowhere in sight. (Bother). Gandalf leaned close to another wood-Elf, whispering.

They were talking about the Fellowship, the Elf wondering outloud over our strange makeup (dwarves and weasels, honestly), almost like they thought we really could not overhear them in this close space… ooooh! Why didn't it click before? They were speaking in their folksy Elvish, and somehow I could understand them. Awell. Besides their babble, the only other sound was the wind in the mallyrn, which produced a fresh, spicy scent. Yeah, it was great, and the Elves had a non-scent about them that meant they had bathed recently. They just had to be taking every chance to put their nose in the breeze contrary the Company.

Speaking of scents, I smelt the goblins five minutes before I heard them and after another five minutes I saw them, scuffling, snorting in a herd like demonic cattle through the silvery trees. One of our Elves disappeared. We held our breaths as each passed under our hiding place, and almost stopped breathing completely when about a dozen gathered around the base of the tree.

Despite that I knew the words they used, I did not know what they said. Roughly:

"I smells somethin'"

"You lyin'"

A loud, guttural inhale. "Gar! Man blood!"

"Lemme smell!" Scuffling and cursing.

"You'll have your sniff!" Here a hacking sound. Stupid goblins. I pitied them in a way, to be stuck forever with the IQ of 11-year-old boys.

Aragorn at that moment sat up. I blanched. Where his right should have been was a tattered sleeve. Wasn't that his sword-arm? I wondered how the wielding-of-Andúril thing was going to work out.

Some shouting rose in the distance and whatever goblins were left under our tree shambled off.

Whew. We were still alive.

From the sky a third Elf dropped. He had a roughin'-it aura about him: windswept hair, dirty fingernails and a smudge on his forehead. Hmm, Haldir, I presume? His voice reminded me of an Aussie's without the Australian part. "We have led the Orcs deeper in the woods where our people wait. Those foul beasts will not return out of Lórien." The march warden touched his forehead as though he were tipping a hat. "Tomorrow we will take you to the Lord and Lady. But sleep for now; you are safe.

Oh, yay. The Lady. Lovely. Can't think of a telepathic psycho I'd rather like to meet.

Next day Aragorn claimed to be well-recovered, but still we walked slowly. I gathered that yesterday we had kept only a little ahead of pursuing Orcs, bogged down by Aragorn, Gandalf and me, despite the fact we left Moria early morning. If Legolas and his cavalry had found us even ten minutes later we would have been in the black bowels of the goblins by now. Well, I assume their organs are black.

All the same, I was tired of the walkin'. The only thing that made up for it was seeing Gandalf and Gimli falling into Silverlode when the arm-rope snapped. Make that two things. Legolas was looking mighty fine with those sharp star-filled eyes of his, gawking at every breath of wind and peep of a bird. He was a kid at ToysRus.

We rested by Amroth's tool-shed thing. I fell happily onto the grass and dug up a few worms. They come big in Lórien. My happy preoccupation was cut short by a shadow of… gah! Gandalf stood smiling, from the long trunk that was sweat-stained robes, over me. I looked around for Frodo… he was gone. Aragorn or some Elf must have dragged him off. I was on my own.

"Odi! At last. I've been meaning to have a word with you. Now more than ever." He glanced behind, no doubt, for a fang-bearing, cleft-chinned hobbit. He knelt down and continued, while I, with mouth full of worm, narrowed my tiny eyes to appear sage. "We have come through many hardships these last days. The maiming of Aragorn. The loss of Boromir… I feel I might have led our Fellowship better…"

His face sagged with such sadness that I pat his mud-soaked boot and squeaked: _Well, what can ya do?_

"Odi," he brought his noxious breath closer to my snout. "I know you are a messenger from the West. Now that my foresight is failing me, I need your advice. Where does the Company go from here?"

The worms slithered from my paw. _Uhhh… _

I suddenly had a squirming in my belly that had nothing to do with my repast. I was responsible. My actions had consequences. Whatever information I passed to the wizard would have to be delicately sifted and weighed. I did know the books and all, but his being alive threw everything out of line.

_Well, you could conk yourself for a start… Seriously, now, ya can't drag this whole crew to Mordor 'cause we may as well be traveling by hot air balloon, as inconspicuous as we are. Let Aragorn do his thing. Make sure he first goes to Edoras, too, that's important. Better send Merry and Pippin to Fangorn with you and then you can skedaddle to Edoras, then to Isengard. The rest'll follow, maybe, and if ya get the Ents to drown Isengard you'll drown his host of doom too, which would be anticlimactic, but if it gets the job done… _

Gandalf was wearing an infuriating smile of non-understanding. "Perhaps nodding to my question shall be easier."

I nodded.

"Long have I studied Sauron, long have I searched for weaknesses. It is my life, my purpose! Yet I've been so long sundered from the West that my vision is clouded. Is stealth the answer?"

I was too afraid to nod but I think he took my gulping as one.

"As I thought." Gandalf chuckled to himself. "Thus, we should keep east, while his eye is west… would that be wise?"

I tried not to move at all, but again the wizard found an affirmative in my stiffness.

"Very good! Mayhap my plans are not without hope after all."

_Ohh, all about you, ain't it?_

We might have gone into deeper philosophical stuff if we both hadn't heard footsteps and chattering. Gandalf dived to the ground and began picking for worms as though he had been doing it all day. Fingers full of plump wrigglers, he raised his face as Frodo, Aragorn, and Haldir's gang filed up.

Haldir wore a cheap grin. "Come, if you are rested. We will reach Caras Galadon by nightfall."

Actually, we reached it forty minutes _after _nightfall, but that's not too important, except I was looking forward to real, really, real food, and anything that stood in my way was gonna be stepped on.

We came to a freakishly large tree wrapped with stairs that went on and on forever. WHY! Merry and Pippin looked ready cry. They had quickly snarfed all the march warden's Elvish camp food early that morning, leaving not a crumb for the rest of us. They claimed they had not realized this till it was too late, an excuse I almost bought. Well, anyway, up and up we climbed. Legolas supported the Ranger. The wizard, refusing to be led, shuffled.

Barely alive, we reached the top. The silver Lord and golden Lady, ancient and grave, sat in a lofty, softly-lit hall; before them was a table stacked with shimmering, steaming food, glorious food.

I think they greeted us; I don't remember. I just remember the scents of wonder pulling us forward. Merry pushed Pippin. Gimli tripped Merry. Down went Gimli under Legolas and Aragorn's feet. I jumped onto and over Gandalf's back and fell skidding onto the lavish table. We sunk our teeth into the roasted bird. We inhaled the fruity sauces. We drank the nut-crusted bread. We attacked that food like chickens on grain. We said nothing and listened only to the others' jaws working up down, swish back, swallow. We ate till our stomachs felt like bags stuffed with chunky clay. I sat back with a belch and fell onto Legolas' lap. He was singing some Elfy "Keep on the Sunny Side" into his cup and sloshing its contents onto his chin. Teehee. I hit the floor, head first.

When I finally could roll onto my stomach, the clockwork of munching had been replaced by satisfied moaning. I pulled myself up what was once Aragorn and dumped my tummy on the table, hoping for another bite to settle the berry-sauce down. At the other end, the Lord and Lady and their cohorts sat, faces white and grave, their food untouched. _Whadda crime,_ I thought and collapsed onto a sticky mithril platter.

Gandalf, his beard full of gravy, tried to stand, gave up, and raised his cup. "Good Lord and Lady of the Golden Wood, thank-you for your em, your em…"

"When's breakfast?" sighed Merry.

"For your hospitality to our Company." Gandalf drained his cup and his head fell back. He emitted a gurgly snore.

Galadriel stood now, with her cup high. Her proud face, neither young nor old, seemed perfectly unperturbed. This could have happened every day. She lilted: "Naught is too much for our guests. You have through many toils and sorrows, I see. But where is the ninth member? For surely that was the number that set out."

Everyone looked to his stomach, suddenly silent.

"Alas," said Aragorn. "Our ninth member, Boromir, a noble man of Gondor, was lost in Moria." Again, the room was silent. Well, we could look at the bright side. It only saved us, like, three chapters of departures and reunions.

"I don't know what it was, well, what it was that did it," piped up Pippin. "It made me feel all horrible and I could tell the others were frightened."

"A Balrog of Morgoth!" "Durin's Bane!" yelled Legolas and Gimli at the same time.

"I KNEW it!" said Celeborn. His silver hair bristled like sparks. His eyes met with his wife's. "Alas, we long feared a terror slept under Caradhras…" He began a rant on dwarves and was cut short by a long belch from Frodo.

"BOR-ING," said Frodo.

"Perhaps now is not the time for talk," Galadriel said gravely. "The grief is still too near. You are weary and counsels can wait." She pierced her gaze into each one of us. I studied the joints on my paw; very wonderful how they all fit together and voila – I think and they flex! I felt the Lady's eyes hover over my head for long, burning seconds, till at last they receded. I sighed and fell asleep.

I woke with a stomach-ache the size of Ungoliant. Incessant moaning all around told me that I was not the only one with insomnia. In fact, no one slept easy for three days – if ya can call them days because time does not seem to want to be fenced in and counted in this place. By night, we slept like gophers in niches in the roots. Hey, we had clean linen. By day, we strolled out and strolled back and ate food. I felt the pointing fingers as Frodo walked by with me sagging on his shoulders. "A strange companion," some Elves would laugh, to which Frodo would snap so abusively that they just stopped acknowledging his existence. That was a shame because _I _didn't mind being the center of their attention.

This lax life did not last long. Gandalf was antsy to be gone. I was too, considering we'd more easily avoid the two S's errand-runners of doom. But most did not take Gandalf's suggestion of leaving well. We were just getting used to regular and wholesome meals again. Aragorn was pretty robust for a guy recently down a limb, though his dirges for Boromir had been marginally off-key. He alone backed up the wizard's proposal; so the rest of us could only groan.

"Can't we stay just a little longer?" Pippin huffily plopped down on a root.

"No, we leave tomorrow, and if that is not well with you, Master Took, you may stay here." Gandalf snorted.

Pippin could not respond to that.

But Legolas looked undecided. He left "to be alone" for a while. He had fully immersed himself into Lórien life the last week. He was like a super-star, I guess, being in important distant relation and all.

"Oi!" said Merry. "He's not actually thinking of staying, is he?"

"Of course not!" said Gimli.

"Frodo!" Pippin yelped. "Shouldn't Frodo have a say in this? Do we have to leave tomorrow, Frodo?"

"Ask Odi."

Pippin frowned. "I am asking you."

"Well," Frodo's lip twisted. "I'm not answering." Pippin stood up, clenching his fists.

"There now!" Gandalf flew between them. "Dinner has arrived!"

We ate slowly and went to bed early. Frodo shifted about restlessly, and I too lay awake, watching the leaves ripple over the endless layers of stars. The constellations never seemed so alive. Pulsating and tense, Orion looked ready to swing his sword on unsuspecting children-o-Morgoth.

I heard Frodo get up. Just what I was waiting for. I followed him following the ghostly-white, silent Galadriel, as she glided between trees, down rooted steps to a birdbath.

She filled it with purified water and asked Frodo if he would like to look at it. I had no time to backtrack. With the flashing speed of a spider he had me ensnared and held me aloft. "Let Odi look first!"

For the first time, Galadriel seemed hesitant. "I know not what the mirror may reveal… yet let be shown what will. Bring her forward."

Ok. This was cool. Frodo held me over the rim. I peered down. My whiskers, my round muzzle, my squat head rippled from sight, and like a cloud of dye, another face appeared. It was no one I had ever seen. At least, not someone I could name. The face was flowing like liquid, yet still as a statue. I'd have thought it was, except for the eyes set in them. They were old, old, old. They were soothing, though, and reminded me of summer days in the creek and long hours of rain. I felt that my presence before his was filthy and discordant. Suddenly the face wrinkled in a smile and… was that a wink?

The face was gone. I saw now a crowd of people, pointing and gaping. I found that I knew those faces. That sparse room with the hard fluorescent lights. It was the lab. I bent closer, making out each of the figures, giving them their names. Oooo! Was that the incredibly cute guy from the next table bending over my lifeless form?

Galadriel whispered sharply: "Do not-"

_I wonder what happens if I do?_

I bent closer, millimeters from the rippling surface, and stuck out a toe. _Touch._


	7. Inconvenient Assumptions

**Chapter 7: Inconvenient Assumptions**

Fireworks went off behind my eyes. Then I thought I saw my life flashing, but this was nothing I'd done. Two pillars of light, like giant trees, gold and silver like the sun and moon. So many bright faces, happy… and then… A sudden darkness. A city by the sea, blood on the pearly streets. So much more blood and screams. There was a forest and in there a man with silver hair. He held my hand and all was fine, though the screams and the blood never left. The earth rumbled and the sea swallowed everything and many lands rolled by – or one and same over time. I had a city by the mountains. Everything was beautiful. I now held the hand of a silvery-locked girl and in the other the man's. And a ring was on my finger and again the world turned to screams and blood. I was in the forest and nothing changed. I stayed and the world changed. I had nowhere to go. I looked to the west and it was closed. At last everything closed in around me. And the screams and blood was my own. My ring was taken from my finger…

_Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. _

I was being shaken. It was no use trying to open my eyes because they were already open. My brain felt like it was being compressed and ribboned through my ear or like a roll of film going through a projector, with which my memories were being showcased on a screen. I could not pull it back in. I had no control over my mind. But I _had _to interrupt the flow somehow... _Lalulalalalula! LALULALU! I'm a-singin'! Keeep on de sunny side, a'ways on de sunny side… WOOOOOOO!_

My eyes cleared. I was still being rattled.

_Geh weg!_

"I believe it is working!" Oddly enough, it was not Frodo's voice, but rather Gandalf's. And I was shaken all the harder, like a stubborn salad dressing.

I growled. Gandalf _aha-ed_! I saw Frodo in the background running in a circle, flailing his arms.

As my brain settled back in place, I inspected my surroundings. It was still night, though the stars had clouded over. Steam was rising from rubble beside us. I realized it must be the remains of the mirror. Yeah. 'K.

Quickly I shifted my gaze to another scene nearby. Celeborn was kneeling on the ground and fanning a conked out Galadriel. Her eyes were open, fizzling like a broken TV. The fizzling cleared as I watched. She focused onto Celeborn and I caught her whisper: "Such I never knew. Such I never dreamt. What I have seen… Mithrandir!" Her eyes settled on us. "You were right. This otter is of the other shore… she has the blessing of Ulmo… she carries knowledge of the Quest… what you must do to succeed."

_Damnation! No, no, no, nopidy, no… _

Gandalf bowed his head. I smelt the bacterial decomposition of his orifice. Frodo persisted on his circle. I thought it strange that his legs seemed cut off at the knee, but it was only that he had formed a knee-deep trench.

Celeborn caught his wife's head as it settled back. His gaze shifted between his wife, me and the hobbit. It settled long on the hobbit. He moistened his lips. "When shall you depart, Mithrandir?"

"We had planned to leave on the morrow, as soon as we have made ready."

The Lord of the forest said with eagerness, "I shall give you boats, to hasten your journey south."

Gandalf paused, rubbing his chin. "Thank you, Lord Celeborn, but that is too great a risk."

"The lands south have changed much," Celeborn shook his head sadly. "They are barren. Your best chance would be to pass them swiftly by river."

Again, I was jetted by that aroma. "What say you, Odi?"

Pinching my snout, I nodded fervently. Gandalf nodded back. "Then walk we shall."

My mouth fell open. I shook my head, popping my neck more than once. No one looked my way.

"We shall give you whatever you need for the journey," Celeborn droned on.

Frodo's trench had now reached his waist.

Back in the company of our snoring fellow world-savers, I fell into my nest, exhausted but unable to sleep from my mind-swap. My brain felt unhinged and I was certain I had suffered a whiplash. Ache, ache, ache. Eh, it wasn't so horrible that I couldn't manage to get up for our final elvish bed-n-breakfast.

Before noon, Haldir came to our root den and tapped his invisible hat. "We have readied your provisions," he waved his hand to where a half-dozen Elves were piling up sacks and handing out greenish cloaks. "The Lord and Lady request your presence, to grant you their parting wishes."

He looked my way and fell face-forward to the dirt. I thought he was having a seizure or something. But he unbent himself right back up again, and said with fiery zeal: "Friend of Those ruling beyond the Sea."

Hooboy.

He stood still, staring at me with great wide eyes. I wished suddenly that the moon would fall on me… anything to distract this guy. What was he waiting for? Oh. OH! I gotta do something. I twirled my right paw and gave him a _live long and prosper_. He backed away with rapturous trembling.

The others were taking great interest in our new supplies. The Elves who had lugged them in stood aside, surveying the Company with polite interest.

Gimli had already cracked into one of the sacks. The Elves bent in, awaiting his approval. The dwarf sniffed the opening, licked the material and reached his hand in. He retracted it with a shriek, as though he had been struck by a viper. He threw down the sack and crushed it, smashed, bashed it with his boots.

Merry and Pippin quickly tore open one for themselves. Merry's scream was blood-curdling. Pippin flung the sack's contents onto the trees, where they burst apart in white explosions. The hobbit yodeled and reached for another sack. Legolas threw himself against the pile and slashed it with his knife, calling in the name of his father, mother and all relations three generations up. "Elendil!" cried Aragorn, before dull and hesitant, though now in the hour of his wrath terrible to behold. For a moment, it seemed to me, a white flame burned on his brows like a shining crown. With his left arm, he smote the sacks to the last, and so mighty was the skill of his blade, he was marred nary but once. Glamdring, too, sang beside Adúril. In one minute, not a modicum of lembas bigger than a mustard seed was left.

Not to be left out, I gave the crumbs several good tail-whaps. I remembered too well the suffering of our bowels on the journey south. Oh, such suffering they endured.

"Perhaps our people's waybread is not to your liking," said Haldir gravely.

"Give us meat! _Meat_!"

"I want ripe meat, fresh off the bone!"

"Tomatoes, sausages, eggs, bacon!"

We surrounded the Elves with demands of non-baked eatables. Shielding their pale faces, they backed into a mallorn, and in an eye's blink, shot up the tree. Legolas led the throwing of the shriveled leaf wrappers after them.

Frodo gave a great snort from his couch and rolled over.

Our helpful Elves plus Haldir returned in less than ten minutes, again loaded with sacks, which this time were steaming and soaked with dark grease stains. We gave them a close, finger-licking inspection, then we packed up, shook Frodo and let ourselves be led to the Lord and Lady. We become merry and talkative (well, chirpative in my case) as we walked under the golden afternoon sun and silver trees. By the time we came to an open green lawn, our Company had become fast friends with our Elven comrades and it sorrowed us to see them go. Haldir explained he had things ta do and places ta go, tapping that pretend hat of his one final time.

Galadriel and Celeborn were waiting for us. They stood shoulder to shoulder and could not look any more solemn than if they were attending a funeral.

"Alas, you will pardon us for not eating with you again, though you are our guests, for the time for departure has come," Celeborn said, sounding to be in the final stages of pre-nap time.

Galadriel pinched his hand. "We have, however, brought you gifts, such that we are able to provide in so short a time."

Oooo! Yeah! I love presents. Come on, give, come on, give. Come on!

They made us line up and called us one by one. It was like Christmas at Grandma's.

To Merry and Pippin were given belts. They seemed a teeny let down, maybe because they weren't made of food. To Gandalf the Lady whispered for five minutes and gave him a flask. I could only assume it was more liquor.

To Aragorn she said loudly: "Forget not Beren one-handed, who won the heart of fair Lúthien. Many were his deeds and many shall be yours." And many other things, in just as loud a tone.

After the Ranger had finally been let go, she called forward Legolas, who got his omg-the-coolest-thing-evah. Then there was the whole cute Gimli scene, which left my face so burning with pent-in laughter, I had pressed it against the grass and bit into the dirt. She called me next.

I jumped to my paws and scraped the grass off my tongue. I forgot myself for a moment and tried walking two-leggedly toward the Lady's feet. I toppled and actually rolled almost the whole distance. Galadriel knelt down and said softly: "There is naught I can offer that matches what you have given. I have seen myself pass the test. I know now I must diminish. That, or suffer the future of the dark lord, which we both have seen." She paused and I parted my chops in a weak smile. "But to you I must give something. Please accept it. It is a near-stone, given to me long ago. Very few were made and still fewer now exist."

She gave me a small pouch. It was black and soft, but the material felt strong and impenetrable, as though even water could not work its way in if sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Inside I felt a flat, slightly rounded object. It was surprisingly heavy for being smaller than my paw. I dumped it out. It was a perfectly clear glass, with not a scratch or smudge. Closing one eye, I looked through it.

The Lady's noble Noldorin nostrils enlarged into porous detail. What magnification! Better than any backyard scope! As I moved it from my eye, the magnification grew even more, bringing the farthest up branches into minute detail. But I could not see how it was even possible with a single glass.

The Lady still watched me. I closed my eyes and imparted my humblest squeaks. She then called to Frodo, and I replaced the stone and hung the pouch about my neck.

While Frodo tried to nibble on the Light of Eärendil, Galadriel whispered, "You could have no greater protection, Frodo, than from the kind of Gandalf and Odi."

Sigh. It just don't end. I'm as much a Maia as Al Gore is a climatologist. She must have interpreted my innumerable memories of web-surfing for some sort of omniscience.

Finally they were finished. They raised their hands in solemn farewell. We bowed, belching out many a _thee _and_ thou_, andcontinued the tedious road south.

We went on for days and weeks while the land became more and more barren. We generally followed the river, staying where the rocks or dead weeds and trees provided most cover. There was not a day I did not expect to wake up to the battle-mooing of Orcs. And days went by and it never happened. It was fortune that kept them from our trail… least as far as I knew. We just kept downwind of them, maybe. Gandalf must have been aware of this potential peril because he dropkicked anyone who snored or talked above a whisper.

One evening, a few days from Rauros if the wizard was to be trusted, we halted near the shore and broke out food. While the sausages sizzled, I paddled into the water. This was not the barely floating sort of swimming I did in my other life. I mean, this was really swimming, liking flying.

A small fish was waving stupidly near the shore in the weeds. A light snack before dinner would be nice. I swam nearer and nearer, slowly. That fish wasn't budging; just waving up and down. I pulled myself a diving-length away… but the fish was gone. Instead there was a hand. Then I couldn't breathe. It was like iron clampers were around my neck.

"Isss it sweet? Isss it juicy? We'll squeeze it and see…"

I struggled, but it was as though I were wrapped in cords. I could move nothing, nothing – I wiggled my backside – except my tail. I whipped it against my captor with a wet slap. The clampers loosened enough for me to squeak.

"Something's got Odi!" Frodo howled. "Shoot it!"

Legolas shouted, "I cannot!"

The clampers pushed off and I could breathe again. I floundered around, gulping in oxygen.

"Shoot!" Frodo's howl was that of an animal's.

"I canno- Yeeow!" Yelling, scraping, a whistling…

The next second, Aragorn splashed into the water with Frodo. Again I was suffocated.

The Ranger went deeper into the weeds and bent over. "It's… " Aragorn looked up. "It's Gollum." He had the limp creature in hand. "Frodo. He's dead."

Frodo let me breath. "So?"

The others were gaping on the shore, save Legolas, who was hopping on one foot, clutching his shin. I saw Frodo still held the Elf's bow, between him and me. He had actually seized it, the little twerp.

We buried Gollum by the shore. I stood a long time by the mound. This stunk – the situation, I mean. Stunk like old bananas. Goodbye climax.

I returned to the camp. Everyone picked at his food. The air was heavy with silence. It was Merry who shattered it at long last, with the throwing down of cup.

"Frodo, this is not right. What you did today. It's not that I liked the old creature but… but I think you're putting Odi before everything… all of us and the Ring even."

Frodo scowled and shooed Merry's words.

Then Pippin jumped up, right nose-to-nose with the Ring-bearer. "He's right, Frodo, you've changed. You just won't see it! It's that animal – that animal's changed you! I don't care what Gandalf or the Elves say. That thing has been nothing but trouble. It drove Sam away, it's destroying our fellowship. It's destroying you, Frodo!"

"Not a friend of Odi, not a friend of me."

"We are your friends, Frodo, maybe the only you got left," Pippin pinkened.

"No longer can I stand to be in their presence!" Frodo pointed to his cousins. "Have them go home."

"We came to keep an eye on you, Frodo!" cried Merry. "And you prove even now you need it, more than ever! We won't let you!"

"Then enough of this quest. I've had it. I'll just throw the Ring into the river, and be done with it." He made a beeline for the shore. The others roared _Noooo!_ and took off in his dust.

He was teetering on the bank's edge, the Ring dangling on its chain over the rushing water. He grasped it with but two fingers. Everyone stopped abruptly, afraid to disturb him in the slightest, as though he were a boulder balancing on a needle.

"Come now, Frodo," Aragorn said softly, his one hand outstretched. "Come, we are your friends…"

"Get back!"

"We swore to protect you!"

Frodo opened one finger.

"Please Frodo," whispered Gandalf. "Let not our labors have been in vain. Think of Boromir!"

"You will do as I ask," hissed the hobbit. His eyes were dark and shifty.

All nodded.

Frodo wrapped all his fingers around the chain and stepped from the edge. Ours was a collective sigh.

"Let us sit," said Gandalf. We followed suit, not talking, not looking at each other. "Now, Frodo, what is it that you wish? Understand we only want to help. We were all charged with this task. We must destroy this thing, at any cost."

"I understand."

Gandalf leaned forward, his beard dangling. "Then what will you have us do?"

"They," Frodo jerked his head. "Are not to come. I'm sick 'n tired of 'em."

Merry and Pippin opened and then bit their mouths as Gimli, sitting between them, smashed their feet.

"I agree," Gandalf said. The hobbits' faces slumped. "This is a venture too dangerous for those young and rash. Not to say they shan't have uses elsewhere." He smiled under his many hairs. "Aragorn, you must continue with your plan. Go to Gondor. Take the young hobbits with you."

Aragorn bowed his head for a contemplative minute and looked up, a struggle in his eyes, though his tone was deliberate. "You are right, as always, Gandalf. I will go."

"And Legolas and me?" grunted Gimli.

"Let us go with you, Frodo, to the end!" said Legolas, though his face was less-than-eager.

The wizard sighed. "In truth, I never supposed the whole company would cross into Mordor. Our hope is in stealth, and the more of us, the more we stand out. Two, maybe three, is the most sensible number. All of us have aided the Ring-bearer, but for some of us that part is over. I advise you Legolas, and you Gimli, to consider accompanying Aragorn. There will be many perils and chances of valor on that road as well. There are other tasks no less crucial than protecting the Ring-bearer."

Gimli chewed his lip. "Very well! I will go to Gondor, if you approve, Master Baggins?"

Frodo rolled his eyes.

"I shall also take the road to Gondor," Legolas said quietly.

_Whamana? _My heart shattered. _Why, I poured my heart and my soul onto your altar!_ My face crinkled up painfully as I blubbered. _There's only one thing to do._ I took out my mental List and slashed out Legolas' name. I heaved a shuddering sigh. _On second thought…_ I erased the mark and circled the name, and then drew an arrow pointing between Spock and Qui-Gon Jinn. There. Ya never know.

Aragorn pointed out that those going to Gondor will need to reach the western shore and the only feasible way was to swim (Gimli shouted that down) or build a raft. Trees would be more abundant by the time they met Raurus, the most feasible place to cross, so that task could wait. I wished they would build it now. It would give them something to do, besides stare at each other, pretending nothing significant was happening.

Ugly silence.

My opinion, though, was not asked for; it went unsaid that Frodo wasn't going anywhere without me. And he had to go to Mordor. Catch-22, damnit. But did I really want to be subjected to living death with only him and Gandalf for company? I could bash Frodo, I could sneak away, I could go to lovely, historic Gondor. Then I remembered the trip of Boromir's boot on my body. This also dropped into my mind: when Denethor asked how it was his son was dead, I didn't want to be twenty leagues of the Citadel. I shivered off the feeling of his throttling fingers. Ohhhh, by the Whistle of Oromë…

Early next morning, before the sun even hit the horizon, the two-leggeds shouldered their packs. We were divided in two. On one side was Legolas and Gimli, Merry and Pippin, and Aragorn, his single hand raised in farewell. The hobbits' eyes swam with tears. The Elf and dwarf tried to smile and wished us good fortune. On the other side was Gandalf, Frodo and me on Frodo's head. Gandalf spouted some moth-eaten diatribes on fate and hope. Frodo under me sighed and tapped his foot.

Then like from a pre-arranged signal, we turned from each other. They along the Anduin, us toward the now red-wreathed sun. Nobody looked back.


	8. Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen

**Chapter 8: Nobody Knows de Trouble I Seen**

_If Denethor leaps off the Citadel from rest at an altitude of 700 feet, what is his height relative to the flat plain below 6 seconds later? What is his velocity? Acceleration?_

I scratched the problem in the dirt under a tidy table of logarithms and to the right of a Pascal's Triangle. Can't get rusty just because I'm on a suicide mission.

We'd already suffered two days in Emyn Muil. Not only had the lifeless landscape quickly grow boring, but my companions… well, they were slightly dysfunctional, at the best of times.

_Given the acceleration due to gravity and the equation for free fall, I find the first… _A boot appeared in the logarithms.

"Our every step must be careful. Secrecy is critical." Gandalf was pacing, his fists clenched at his back. "If He suspects, we are doomed."

He tramped a second time over my tables, try as I did to shield them with my body. "The problem we face now is getting_ in_. Unseen."

Frodo was picking crud from between his toes. "Are we going to dress as Orcs and walk into Mordor?"

Gandalf looked at Frodo. I looked at Frodo. Then I looked back at the wizard, his mustache bristling.

"No. No, Frodo. I've a better idea."

I put a pause in my plan to skin his ankles. This could be interesting.

"We shall." He pointed to the sky. Here was his moment of eureka. "We shall scale the Mountains of Ash!"

I applauded. _Ooo! And then we make a 25-mile dash to Mount Doom! Clever!_

Frodo found a rock amidst his toes and rolled it in his fingers. "But Gandalf, that sounds difficult."

Gandalf stomped out my last surviving equation and placed a hand on Frodo's shoulder. "This task was never to be easy. But I have faith in the endurance of hobbits. You were meant to bear this burden, Frodo. And I will help you as long as I am able."

"But Gandalf, mountains are big."

The Istar sighed.

I can't say enough times how much rocks offended me after that. Emyn Muil is nothing but rock, rock, rock miles and miles. No variety. I got rocks in my eyes, my ears, my nose... And I used to_ collect_ rocks. It would have been more bearable if it weren't for Gandalf's stealth strategy: first, we stumbled low on the uneven topography, then scurried behind a large boulder to listen a full minute for stalkers, and finally stumbled another five minutes till Gandalf signaled for another scurry. This dragged on for days. My tongue lolling, I thought of better times.

_I want electricity._

_I want microwave burritos. _

_I want to make a batch of cookie dough and eat it._

_I want to smell soap…_ I sniffed myself. I could do without the animal mustiness.

Yet there was a bright side. I sure didn't miss zits, eating with a fork or political correctness. Everyone here is so forward about stuntedness and pipeweed it is like a blast in the face. It was great!

"Halt!" Gandalf shouted. Frodo rammed into his back and I into Frodo's legs. We hit the inelastic ground.

As we rightened ourselves, dark clouds pulled in from the east and Gandalf took a long sniff, murmuring, "Something is troubling me. I think I shall look ahead."

I gazed at the wizard. Bent like a pear-tree at harvest, he exuded the centuries of toil he had been commissioned to. His face was carved with canyons. His hair was grey as grief and wispy as vacated spiderweb. He had grown so much older since Rivendell and his eyes, once so bright under the greasy grey brows, were now dim, belying his weariness, determination and constipation.

"Frodo, what is it? Is it the Ring?" Gandalf squinted at the hobbit, who had folded his arms.

"I think you just have to use the bush."

"Eh?" The wizard did a double-take. "No! I will scout ahead and you will stay with Odi."

"But_ I_ have to use the bush."

Gandalf waved his hands. "Then make haste!"

_Praises be I don't have to follow. _

Frodo hasted away alright. The wily wizard and I sat across from each other, separated by Frodo's pile of discarded rucksacks and blankets. Maybe twenty minutes passed. I constructed a pyramid from pebbles and turned my head to study it upside-down. What it needed was a flag. I searched the gravel, and beyond wonder, I found a leaf, brown and delicate. I wondered from what plant it was and from whence it came and what it was doing so far from home. What leafy friends had it left behind and what… I ripped it along its midrib and flung the two pieces over my back. I was becoming way too introspective.

"He has been gone long." Gandalf stood and glared at the landscape. "Come," he shouldered all the bags. "I have a bad feeling about this."

I wished he wouldn't say things.

He started in the direction Frodo had disappeared, between two boulders that reminded me of bulldog fangs. The rocks beyond looked no less sinister. Some groped and curled like dragon talons trying to claw free of the earth. Others stood battered and crooked like ancient sentries; I felt them watching us as we turned our backs to them. One stone had the uncanny resemblance to the Buddha with a Darth Vader helmet. Why did Frodo _have _to go this way?

Unless he grew wings, he could have gone no other way; the rocks hung over so treacherously we were presented with but one walkable path.

"Frodo!" Gandalf whispered. "Frodo! Now is not the time for games."

A drop of water hit my nose. Another and another. Soon we were surrounded by sheets of rain, lit only by whips of lightning. Great. Drama.

The old man was not ready to give up. He clutched his hat and pushed forward, grumbling an endless colorful metaphor. Close to the ground, I was not bothered by the wind, yet I was soon struggling not to get swept away by the water that rushed down the slick stone. My hind feet slipped at last and I tumbled back, squeaking at the impact of a nastily hard rock.

"You are right!" Gandalf yelled over the wind. "This is no ordinary storm!"

_What is ordinary? _I rubbed my head.

"Frodo may have taken shelter and we-" The wind took his voice and his hat. He almost toppled, keeping on his feet only by the sturdiness of his staff. "We should do the same," he panted.

I clung to his boot and we stumbled to the base of a cliff, which hung over just enough to shield our heads from the rain. The air was weighted with stony dankness. The water slapped the ground before me, sending up sharp sparks of wetness into my face. In the gathering puddles, I caught my reflection, my fur flat and forlorn. Sigh. A drip disrupted the reflection and I thought I saw a man in it, nodding and nodding… like in encouragement?

"I heard him!" Gandalf rushed into the storm. Ten seconds later he screamed and his voice vanished. _I'm surrounded. _I glanced again to the puddle. It was blank, rippling with another drip.

I groaned and tiptoed after my courageous comrade. I learned very quickly why he had screamed – a precipice was located about five steps away, as I discovered. The fall was not a long one and anyway I had cushy landing on the wizard plus rucksacks.

"I have found him!" The wizard beamed. The rain slowed and the thunder muted. The sun broke free and glared into our faces. Gandalf had indeed found Frodo, right beneath him. The hobbit had not suffered any harm, however; he was sleeping sound as a stump, his thumb in his mouth.

"Well, well," Gandalf continued to look mighty pleased with his own intellect. "I suppose we are meant to rest here. I shall take the first watch."

Wee. I shut my eyes.

_Captain's log, stardate 3222 and 1/2. My chief science officer has presented me with intriguing behavior, which may have brought harm to the crew, had not the chief medical officer taken swift action. _

"Captain!" Spock tumbled onto to the bridge. "Captain! They're coming! They're going to kill us! We're gonna die! Save me! Do something! Save me! Hide!" He hit the floor, twitching and convulsing.

Chekhov and Sulu exchanged looks. "What's up with him?" I asked.

The navigator shrugged. "Maybe he ate somethink," he searched for the words. "Somethink bad."

"I must protest, Captain." The Vulcan pulled himself up and folded his hands to his back. "I am operating at my fullest capacity. My gestational functions are affecting me in no perverse manner."

"Well, ok, then." I was inclined to think deeply about half-Vulcans while he strode to my Chair o' Command.

"Now Captain." Spock produced a wicked curved dagger from his sleeve. "I shall put a maggot hole in your belly."

"A _what,_ Mr. Spock?"

Dr. McCoy cannon-balled from the crystal chandelier that rocked over the captain's chair. "Not this time, Vulcan."

He and Spock went down, but were quickly back on their feet, McCoy brandishing his syringe and Spock his knife. Their swipes and deflections were fast and furious, and their relentless duel carried them to every corner of the bridge. Uhura was screeching. Sulu and Chekhov dived under their chairs as the two combatants jumped onto their button-boards.

The chief medical officer finally got the upper hand with the old there's-an-imaginary-number-behind-you trick. Spock's chin met with McCoy's plastic boot.

"Why the 'ell are you just sittin' around?" McCoy waved his syringe under my nose. "Wake up!"

"Hmm?"

"Wake up! Wraiths on wings!" He injected me so hard my arm's bones must have cracked. And I woke to remember I didn't technically have an arm.

_Wraiths on wings!_ I jumped from my skin. Something was poking my foreleg; it was Gandalf's staff. The wizard was sitting upright, his eyes open wide and clear, yet a string of drool adorned his lip and heavy snores rattled from his open mouth. Huh. First watch my tail. The sun was setting in the clear west, while pink clouds curtained the east. I found that we had dropped into a relatively flat plain of stone, rather in plain sight, I might add.

Then in awful suddenness a shadow punctured the sky. My insides became as dense as iron. A chill rose that cut deeper than any evening wind.

Gandalf snorted and his drool retracted. "Mine power is the greater, Saruman."

There came a screech like a thousand nails on chalkboard. Gandalf was on his feet in a millisecond, and his beard blowing over his shoulder, he turned to Frodo and me.

"The beast has seen us! Fly!"

I pounded Frodo's face awake.

"Fly, otter! Take the Ringbearer! Fly!" The wizard stretched out his hand to give us an intangible shove.

_Well, let's just be as conspicuous as we can!_

Although just torn out of sleep, Frodo seemed to understand the objective within seconds. He swatted up all his gear and fled from the plain, back into the mass of rocks. I matched his pace step for step. Meanwhile, Gandalf had run into the open and was waving his staff and spouting more words than my mind could process. After a distance, Frodo took a dive to a boulder and under it we scuttled like crabs.

_We're next! We're so next! _That Wraith had to smell the Ring. I shivered and bit my toes to keep from chattering.

I forced myself to keep an eye on Frodo. Once the Wraith finished with our bold leader, he would be calling for IT. But Frodo showed no jerky, eye-rolling, finger-shaking propensity. Nay, he was digging in his nose.

I gave the sky a cautious peek – at just the right time to see the Fell-beast wheel over. In his talons was Gandalf, dangling by the arms, still swearing and legs kicking. It was just like in _Wizard of Oz._ I pulled free of the boulder and with my eyes followed them over the rim of the mountains, where they vanished.

Onto my tail-side I collapsed. My mind was a blank buzz. Sentences flashed in and out. Gandalf was gone. He was gone. It was just Frodo and me. Just me and the Ringbearer. And Frodo wasn't functional.

The days following were bitter. Orcs prowled the stones. Wraiths circled the skies. Even if Gandalf had managed not to crack under Sauron's imaginative torture machinery, the Dark Lord sure wasn't taking a chance. Somehow, though, somehow we made it all the way south and burst out of Emyn Muil, into the Marshes. I'd found a gorge from that led right into it, a temporary stream of some sort. Just mammal instincts, ya know.

The Quest… what Quest? We thought only of survival. Or I did. I found us water and shelter. I sniffed the air and searched the horizon with my near-stone for pursuers with every step. There was no track of time either. Just endless fleeing, just almost not being nabbed by the next goblin behind the boulder.

We had no destination in the Marshes, and actually, getting out never crossed my mind. Here we were safe, as very few Orcs prowled in that impassible muck. In all honesty, the wetness suited me. Our diet became much more varied with worms and crayfish, and the wetlands never tired the eye for their variety and surprises; just for example, Frodo often in his cleverness discovered sinkholes.

Each of our camps lasted only a day and needed to be cleaned thoroughly of our presence, you know, by fluffing up the mud and such. One damp afternoon we pitched ourselves on a boggy peninsula, raised to a mound at the far end. While Frodo snoozed in his molding blankets, I stood two-legged on the mound, holding the near-stone to one eye. It was our only possession that was not ornamented with mud, thanks to its impenetrable pouch.

I was thinking for not the first time about what Gandalf would do. His plan had been to walk all the way through Emyn Muil, skirt the north edge of Dagorlad and creep down to the Mountains of Ash. Going in the Dead Marshes was far out of the way, and that did not matter. I thought it dangerous to continue with his plan, and yet still more dangerous to go the way of Gollum. These thoughts soon bored me. I hummed to myself, swinging the stone over the Black Mountains in the east.

_I-I am an otter of constant sorro-o-ow. _

I swung the near-stone over the west, to the grimacing rocks of Emyn Muil.

_I've seen trouble… all my… days…_

Something had moved. I distanced the stone and two moving figures focused. They were coming right in our direction. I distanced the stone as far from my eye as my short leg would allow. I gagged, and let the stone fall with a squelch into the muck.

_Oh Bill, hon, I never thought I'd see you again!_

**

* * *

**_A/N: The Star Trek randomness came from a conversation I had with my brothers: "What would a panicking Spock do?" Also I gotta thank Willow for the suggestion to actually add Star Trek in this chapter. Otherwise I'd not have put the two together._

_Thanks to all for still sticking around! :D_


	9. Many Blabbings

**Chapter 9: Many Blabbings **

Maybe I should have been upset we were so easily found. I'd only spent endless weeks of agony keeping us hidden, erasing our minutest traces, flinching at every swamp bubble, keeping watch 20 of 24 hours, sleeping only to dream of having missed covering a footprint and the Nazgûl swooping upon us… Who cared now? I waved and jumped, made all the racket I could.

The two raced closer, rapidly hopping pools, closer and closer till I could see without the near-stone the flush on the hobbit's cheeks and the happy light in the pony's eyes. Just a few more steps.

"Mr. Frodo! Mr. Frodo! Mr. Fr-"

Both vanished.

IPE! I skidded through the mud, came to splattering halt at a still rippling pool. I searched. The water was clouded with brown flecks and scattered bubbles, and a stale stench had been churned up. Only a pale glow broke through the deep haze. It was the glow of the dead flesh. Faces that did not see and fingers that did not feel, bloodless, rotten, eternal, bleh.

I waited. Still no movement in the pool. Why's it always me? I hopped into the water, shoving aside dead faces. Usually I avoided the things when making camp. There were areas they congregated, row upon row. Some of them I'd seen often enough to bequeath them Charlie and Fredrick and Nikolas... Well, this one I'd landed on looked to be Charlie's brother, or at least first cousin. I flipped, groped, blind in the murk… I felt skin, not cold but warm… I slid under the body and pushed up. Up! C'mon! My lungs filled with yuck. Charlie's cousin was looking more and more attractive. Wonder if he's single. Such a lovely place to take a nap. Cozy like. Soft. Warm. I was yanked into raw reality.

Bill had me in his teeth. Next moment he was kicking at the surface, onto solid ground. _Bill. Bill. Billy Bill Bill._ I spat each word along with a mouthful of gunk. The pony wasn't paying attention, but rather nosing the coughing hobbit. From the high end of the little peninsula, Frodo watched us retch. We were on the peninsula's shore; I'd have been annoyed otherwise.

Sam hopped to his feet so suddenly you'd think someone'd dumped ice down his shirt. Tears carved canyons down his mudplastered face. He flew over the mushy ground, arms outstretched. "Frodo! Oh Frodo! Bless me! I can't believe it! Oh Frodo, I'd begun to think I'd never-"

Frodo recoiled from the rank gardener. "Who are you?"

Sam blinked. "Why - Samwise Gamgee!"

"Sam… oh yes. The portly one. Prove it."

Another blink and his face hardened. "All right, Master. I can."

"Excellent. What did I eat for breakfast last Monday?"

"…Uhh, I…"

"I knew it. Imposter." Sting found his hand.

I flew onto Frodo's face, and the knife fell from his grip. He whirled his empty fists. "What now? Treachery?"

Bill saved us from making pulp of each other. He seized Frodo's hair in his teeth and held him stiff. Frodo could not twitch a muscle without becoming a Jean-Luc Picard lookalike.

The once-gardener stepped forward, his lips trembling. "I _am_ Sam. How much more can I prove it, Mr. Frodo, than that I came all this way for you!"

Herr Baggins grunted, as though this were the most tedious string of vocal vibrations that had ever hit his eardrums.

Sam slapped the pony's shoulder. "Bill, do let Frodo be!" A rip and plop. "There now, master, do you feel better?"

Bottom in wet, Frodo crossed his arms. "No."

I tired of the Halfling drama and studied ole Bill. His fur was ragged and caked with crusting mud, much like a welcome mat. His tail was knotted, one ear was torn and small flies held vigil over his face. He never looked so alive. He was munching on a tuff of brown. _O Bill, I wish you could've stayed. I need a lifejacket in this sea of insanity. _The pony contemplated this over a soft chomp and offered me some brown curls.

Sam was flapping his hands about his side, seeming most uncomfortable at the welcome by his former employer. He blew his cheeks. "Hoo. Well, sir. I'm sure curious what's happened. I've had no news at all. What's become of the others and Strider?"

Frodo scratched a bare patch atop his head. "Tis a tale of sorrow and deceit." He related our adventures. It was odd how much I'd forgotten. He told how I led the Company through the pathless wilds, through thunderstorm and blizzard and scorching heat. How Mippen and Perry had fallen in Moria. How Aragorn son of George had dueled Boromir of Vulcan after a night of heavy drink. How the Elf had been turned to a pasty by the no-good wizard Gandalf. And how the Dwarf had smote Gollum to avenge his father. Finally he told how they all had plotted his death – by chopping him into forty-nine pieces and scattering him along the banks of the Anduin – in cahoots with the evil enchanters of the Wood. Gandalf got wind of it and we'd only just escaped.

Sam interrupted the story not once, did not even made a sound, save a breathless gasp at the grim news of the young Hobbits. Now he worked his lips stiffly. "Where – but what about Gandalf?" His eyes were lid-cracking wide.

"He… I forget. What cretin did you dupe into bringing you here? I haven't seen you for some time."

That got him started. Sam pounded mud from his ears. "Well, Mr. Frodo, I have to say that I was rather unsettled, you know, after the Council. But I hadn't meant to leave you. I know you said for me to go home, but I couldn't let you go on alone, not when you weren't yourself!"

Frodo freed up some worms and we sucked them, watching Sam's face puff and deflate with his words.

"I walked in the gardens, my thoughts empty. Then someone called me; one of the Elves at the Council. I didn't think a great lord such as him could even take notice of me. I couldn't answer."

" 'Hello. I am Galdor. Of the Havens. Pleasure to meet you Master Samwise.' He took my hand and shook it. It was very wet. He was wet altogether, like he had fallen into a well.

"When he finished shaking, he squeezed my hand hard and knelt. 'What's this dawdling? Your master has sent you away, so you must obey.'

"My mouth was dusty. 'Well, I don't rightly know what to do. Only that I can't leave. He needs help.'

" 'I did not say_ not_ to help him.'

" 'Then,' I'd enough of yes-and-no talk. 'Tell me what you mean. Either I do or I don't.'

" 'There's a stream down the path,' he jerked his head. 'Step in it. Then return here with what you need before the evening bells.'

" 'Uh, but – but sir, I cannot leave, I told you that.'

" 'You will help your master if you do what I say. And _do _hurry. We cannot be hindered, and that will be more easily achieved if we depart whilst they eat.'

"Though I couldn't see how wetting my feet was going to help, I went down the path and stepped into the stream. I thought it'd be freezing, but was oddly warm. And then, right then, I knew what to do… I didn't know why… I came back to the house and the rooms were empty. Everyone was eating, like Galdor'd hoped. Then… and oh please, Frodo, don't be angry."

"I already am, Sam."

Sam stuttered something that sounded like _chickens on strike_ and flapped his arms. He tried to whistle.

Bill clipped Sam's ear.

"Oh – well, after a few wrapping of affairs, if you understand me, we left Rivendell. Galdor saw to it no one saw us.

" 'We will keep in the wild,' he said. 'And make our way south.'

" 'But why? Why all this sneaking? ' I was out of breath. He was difficult to keep up with.

" 'Questions, questions,' he grumbled, not even turning. 'If Túrin had merely sat and questioned all events, would his life's story be worth a gull's dropping? If Beren had reclined before the Dark Throne asking questions, who'd remember him? And if Tuor had questioned every command of the Lord of Waters…'

"That's but a sample of his talking, you see. And talked often he did.

"When I slept that night, or morning it was, I had the queerest dream. I saw water, just the biggest water you ever seen, all the water in the world filling the horizon. How could anything be so big! And queerer, there was a man in the water. He seemed to be large and small at the same time, I mean part of all the water and not, but just like any of the big folk. He just nodded and I knew that going with Galdor was what I had to do. Queerer still was another dream, one with a room of blinking lights and a tall Elf with a knife! Is the otter all right?"

Frodo shrieked, "What have you _done_?"

_A man in the water… a man in the water… _I was twitching on the swamp mush. I paused, sat straight and coughed.

Frodo, one eye on Bill's choppers, wagged a finger. "A little discretion is all I ask, Sam. A little dis_cret_ion."

"I'm sorry! It won't happen again, sir!" Sam's eyes were so sorrowful and Bill's teeth so large, Frodo let it drop. "We were in the wilderness many weeks and months – I know not how long, it may have been years. Galdor knew how to keep us from being seen and followed. We kept steady down South. One evening, when we'd almost come to the very southernest mountains, I heard a whinny that I never thought to hear again, but I knew better than my Gaffer's whistle.

"Bless me! It was old Bill! He came running like he was chased by the Riders themselves. And lor', he was carrying a whole bakery of pasties. It was a miracle, a real true miracle, Mr. Frodo! I was so happy I forgot a while to wonder how it was he got there at all. He was a bit thin, o course, looked like he had been hunted a long ways. Then I worried what might have made Bill run like that. He had to have been with you.

"Bill and Galdor stood together a long while, staring into each other. After a time the old Elf shook his head. 'Wolves, eh? _And _octopi? Fascinating.'

"I felt embers cover my face. 'How can you say that! What about Frodo? He's out there, maybe killed by these – these _oct pies_, and for what reason? I've betrayed him. The secrecy and lies. A thief in the night. (To quote Mister Bilbo). This ain't right, Mr. Galdor, meaning no disrespect…'

"Galdor turned, his eyes flaming; I near saw smoke. 'You know why we do this, Samwise? Not just for some frolicsome fancy! Tisn't my place to disagree with his eminence Lord Elrond, nor his meddlesomeness Mithrandir. However, I serve my own master, and he his, so you see, it's a matter of obedience. Now, your folk are new to the great meddlers of the world and so have none of the paltry rules, no esteemed lords to keep happy by pretending to listen to them. You are obliged to obey no one except the Highest. So keep your worries. This is our one duty. Your friends have duties too. Theirs shall be a thump on the nose and ours a hit below the belt for Master Eye.'

"I didn't answer but I _think_ I understood.

" 'What I mean to say, my short friend: worry not what is not in your hands and all will be well.' Galdor seized a great handful of pasties from Bill's bags.

"Well, I tried, sir, not to think about it much, but the more I tried not to think the more I thought. About you and whether what I was doing was right and whether I should be by your side keepin' an eye open for the Riders.

"I thought so much that I fell asleep on my watch and next I knew I was being shaken.

"I looked. It was dusk. Galdor touched his lips with a finger and was gone. In no time he returned holding two great big crows, hanging stiff by their legs. 'Well, well. They ought to have known better than to snoop so low. Still, their absence may be read as a report just as well as any. So let us enjoy them best we can.' And that was our most wonderful meal in weeks, a thick stew simmered two hours in my best pot – with a few dry mushrooms I'd saved with salt and leaks and pinch of tarragon-"

"Liar!" Frodo pointed, a worm's end hanging from his lip.

Sam swallowed. "B-begging your pardon, sir!" He tapped together his fingers for a strained second. "After that, it seemed we were followed. Galdor didn't let it on, but I knew he was worried. We moved slow, under cover. Sometimes, I could swear, I saw moving shadows on our horizon, peeking out against the stars; we walked only at night now. I knew it could only be so long till they tried something, and then, sir, then the worst did happen. One night Bill got jumpy and Galdor had us walk faster and faster till we were running. I looked behind and saw the shadows coming closer. Galdor stopped, told us to run on, and he ran back, toward them.

"He clang together two swords, shouted in Elvish, then, 'Yea, come to me beasties, come to me!'

"I wanted to stay. But Bill drug me off and that was the last I heard of him. I don't know if he's dead or captured or something worse…"

Sam's voice puttered and died. My throat tightened and eyes overflowed. I wept for gallant Galdor. For freaky Frodo. For thankless Legolas. For bighead Gandalf.

Sam wept too and we wept together, our sobs echoing like slaps of sodden seaweed over the tepid waters. Eternity passed, then he offered a crusty hanky and I politely shook my head.

"Well, sir," Sam dabbed his nose. "We'd have been lost for good if I hadn't dreamt again that night. The same man appeared as before. He pointed toward the sunrise. And we've kept walking into it, or that general direction. There were hills with all sorts of folk, all around us; at times I thought we'd be caught or stuck with arrows without questions, but never were we bothered. Over seas of grass we went and came to a river. It was deep and wide, impossible to cross.

" 'Ain't _this_ a pickle," I told Bill. 'Here we come all this way to be stopped by one wedge of water. What do we do now?' I sat down, part of me ready to give up and another knowing we couldn't be stopped after all we'd done. And then I saw it. A little boat of logs and rope bobbing in the reeds. Weren't no one using it. Mind, sir, I weren't too happy about boats. Nothing natural to them. I shut my eyes till we were across. And we soon came to this bog, and, well, here we are."

Frodo was snoring. Sam was studying his toe hairs.

"There's one more thing I should tell you, Mr. Frodo. It's mighty important. I still don't know why I did it; it just felt so right at the time… I hope you can forgive me… Mr. Frodo, I've-"

There Bill screamed like only an equine can. The hobbits fell over, covering their heads. I clambered up Bill's side and settled on his head, stretching up tall as I could. _A gaggle of Orcs N30°E, y'all. _

The two-leggeds leaped. "Mr. Frodo, we have to move!"

"Stand back, foohl." Frodo planted his feet and reached into his shirt.

I dived from Bill's head… too late…Frodo was holding a large G-inscribed rocket in one hand and a match in the other. I changed course in midflight and hit the dirt as the hobbit switched the match on his underfoot.

_Foooooom… __**BANG**__._

Smoke crisped the air into an unbreathable mesh. Even through my eyelids I saw the spray of red and gold light. Many Orcish curses were fouling the already jammed air. I dared let open a sliver of my eye and watched as my whiskers sizzled off like those fuse trails in _Bugs Bunny_. Sam lay on his back beside me, his whole face tar-black except his huge white staring eyes. Bill's jaw dangled seven inches. Frodo still stood, the smoking match stuck in his teeth. He rolled it between his lips.

Not a ballthrow away, the Orcs were gaping at a steaming crater behind them.

_Oh, hooray! He missed. And if Sauron didn't see that he needs a new lens prescription. _

It did not take long for them get bored and whip their attention to us again. An Orc with five face warts the size of golf balls shrilled, "These are the ones, m' boys! Don't kill 'em too much. Move, maggots!"

On our peninsula we could not move in any direction without joining Charlie and friends. Then with a cry, Frodo attempted to bowel through the Orcs, waving the burnt match as though it was a sword of flame. He was caught up in wart-face's waiting arms. Sam and Bill immediately charged and were seized as quietly as butterflies in a net. I too charged, felt the heat of their groping fingers, ducked, and rolled between their mismatched feet.

Boss Orc shrieked and stomped. "Get the rat! Get the rat!" The half-dozen Orcs tackled, collided, now a pile of twitching limbs. _Hehe._ I skittered from the wreckage and was straight away lofted by my neck's scruff.

_Curses. _All four paws were bundled and tied, the way ya might see the protagonists roped on poles in get-captured-by-volcano-fearing-natives movies. I couldn't squirm in the teensiest.

"None are to be spoiled! I've my orders!" The boss Orc yelled over their disappointed snarls. "Tha's orders. Now march you maggots!"

They'd tied Sam, Frodo and Bill same as me, all limbs bunched together with rope course as sandpaper. The Orcs carried us with their unwashed hands and their pike-like fingernails nipped our skin, leaving small cuts that itched like mosquito bites. As though it wasn't evil enough to be belching CO2, they also emitted a curse with every breath. They marched almost nonstop, lashed by the tongue of the warty boss Orc, who was too important to carry things.

They were taking us to the Gate, right into Mordor, likely to Barad-dûr itself. Well, if it takes becoming prisoners to get in… ya know, whatever works.

* * *

_A/N: I hope the double quotations didn't go out of control. At least it can't have reached the level of Wuthering Heights... Please tell me no. ^^_


	10. Beaten But Not Eaten!

**Chapter 10: Beaten But Not Eaten! **

A tall guy. Bowl haircut. He strolled past us, licking superman ice cream.

"Spocky?"I plunged from four feet onto the Dagorlad dirt. As I watched from below, the voluptuous Vulcan evaporated. Hateful mirages.

"Garr! More squeaks! I hate the squeaks!" My carrier Orc dropped to his bottom and crossed his arms.

"Pick it up and get goin', Gutbag. Always slowing us. I don't know why we feed you," hissed Frodo's bearer, Snarl. He was a pointy faced fellow with a perpetual devilish smirk. He'd misplaced his elbow somehow and so his lower arm was attached to his upper only by a strip of leather and three screws. Frodo hung loosely from his shoulders, playing cards on the Orc's pointed head.

Gutbag growled as he staggered to his foot. He had a single leg, no second support, and his stomach was most round. "It's not my fault. Let's see you run with one leg."

"Let's see you run with no legs." Snarl gnawed his dagger's blade.

"Shut up, both of ya!" the boss Orc howled.

"Yes, Ma!" And Snarl and Gutbag shutted up, though they continued to murder each other with their eyes.

Five seconds passed.

"Ma-aa." Gutbag rubbed his sore stump. "Can't we have break?"

"We _need_ it!" Grik and Grak's legs wobbled under Bill's mass. Grik was missing one eye and had stuck a red-painted stone in the socket. And where Grak's nostrils should have been were two cavernous slits. Nasty.

Mama Orc tugged her warts as she contemplated.

Gur, who bore Sam under one sweaty arm, said, "Aiiaa." He had no lips.

Mama Orc pat his head. "All right. Two minutes." Gur was her favorite, maybe because he could not argue. "Well! Sit down, maggots!" The Orcs threw their burdens to the dirt before throwing themselves down.

Bill landed on my tail. Sam's face was so close to mine I could smell his breath. He was awake, his face still splotched with dried mud. His eyes were not frightened, only concerned, resting heavily on Frodo.

Frodo shuffled his deck with a flick of his thumb. Intricate G's emblazoned their backs, and I wondered what else the little maggot had lifted from the wizard. He folded them and shuffled again. He caught Sam's stare. "What?"

"Well, Frodo," he whispered. "I wondered if you're all right."

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Them Orcs for a start."

"You've a problem with them?"

"Look, Mr. Frodo, we have to escape. Sooner the better."

Grik, Grak, Gur, Snarl and Gutbag listened to this exchange with stifled yawns. I watched Bill watch me. We were in agreement. We were doomed.

"All right, shut up." Mama Orc kicked Sam. He had become a severe shade of gray. _The guy's got a dirty secret. He couldn't say it before and he won't say it now. _Before my eyes flashed headlines pronouncing murder and seduction.

"Why!" yowled the Orcess, flinging her claw toward Frodo's flashing cards. "Why aren't the maggot's hands tied!"

The Orcs exchanged looks and shrugged.

"Always." She stomped to the Hobbit. "Must do everything." She swathed Frodo's wrists with cord. "Meself."

I nodded. She swelled and bobbed her head. "Now _there's _a maggot with mind meats." She swung around, bearing her fangs. "As for the rest of you maggots – get up! For every delay there'll be flesh to pay."

We might have made good time if Gutbag hadn't kept falling. It might have helped if he had payed up some of his flesh. He hopped, and being forward-heavy, he toppled forward. Since no one waited for him to heave up, we composed the caboose.

My head was too jiggled to think about escaping. Bill, Grik and Grak were last only to Gutbag. I found myself watching Bill. The pony kept to himself. Sometimes I could swear he swiveled my way, but I knew that was my own fantasy. He was watching Sam; his whole equine soul was devoted to defending him. As for the gardener, he was paler than ever. Sea sick, likely. And Frodo… I stopped worrying about him long ago. But I knew if ever the slightest chance of escape came, I could not run without him. Even if it meant leaving Sam and Bill. I was afraid. I did not want that choice.

Gutbag tripped again. After a while you get used to it, the rhythm, and the bruises put you to sleep. Next I knew trumpets were howling and I regained awareness on pointy rocks. My body throbbed with each heartbeat, save my legs, which had long since lost feeling.

I realized that we were not alone with the delightful Orc family.

The air was alive with yowling and cursing. The yowling from the trolls penned up and bechained five yards downwind – praise Manwë! The cursing from the hosts of Orcs going about daily business. Some poked the trolls with sticks to get them to go to sleep. Other Orcs flapped by, pushing each other, stealing each others' dinners, and in two cases, sticking knives into each other's arms. My stomach growled. What did I eat last? Those worms Frodo gave me?

I tried to single out the scents of eatables. Smoldering Anar Above, the smells were unbelievable. Think damp dumpster full of dead skunk and overripe broccoli. Then I had a good look beyond the buzzing Orcs: a wall of black jagged mountains and incased in it, a smattering of gears, beams and hinges. The rear of the Black Gate. We'd passed into Mordor without my noticing. I wondered if we'd gone through customs yet.

I squirmed to look over my other side. A great red headlight scorched the nearby fungus fields.

Nagging inner voice: "Escape would be good now. Plan A."

I wiggled my joints. The ropes did not burst. "Plan B."

Mama Orc argued with some administrator goblin. No one paid us any attention. Frodo's hands were, as usual, free; just what I needed. But he was doing something…. he was… fingering a teeny round thing. I gulped. Don't give in now, Frodo! He lifted it over his face, above his nose… and stuck it up his left nostril.

Mama Orc kicked the administrator goblin's shins. He doubled over, and the argument ended.

"We're leaving!" She kicked each of her sons. "And tie his hands!"

"Yes, Ma," said Snarl, shoving Gur and Gutbag. Frodo allowed his wrists to be chained. His nose looked like a pink apple.

The Orcs snatched us up. No more time for planning.

The road here was smooth, probably not from design, but from the thousands of Orc feet that had pounded it. So Gutbag had an easier time than in the marshes. Still I shut my eyes and braced for the next tumble that would come. They always came. I was more afraid of Gutbag's haulage than of Sauron's stretching rack.

The very worst of this round was the twelfth and I thought during the plummet: _I am going to die. _Gutbag landed on me, then on Grik, who dropped Bill's bottom-half, and so on down the line to Snarl-and-Frodo.

Groaning and cussing. Snarl was the first to find his feet. He pointed his dagger in Gutbag's face.

"Maggot… scum" Snarl was shaking so badly his originality organ must have come loose.

Gutbag shoved aside Snarl's semi-attached arm. "So scum what? I'm scum tired."

Mama Orc told him to shut up.

During the uproar, Gur stealthily positioned his jaws to take a taste of Sam. That was not his first attempt. So many times had his ma walloped his head to force him to spit out Sam's foot that he had a permanent lump. I feared that he'd actually get away with it this time and I heaved a mighty squeak. Gur fell backward, his legs vertical.

Gutbag screamed. "The squeak again! No! No! I can't take it no more."

Mama Orc growled. "Shut up or I'll carve out your nose."

"But Ma, it's killin' me."

"I warned you. I _warn_ed you!" She waved her curved knife. Gutbag hopped back.

Now I knew why every one of them was missing a piece of his body.

"No, Ma. No!" Gutbag groveled on his knee. "I don't wanna be like Grak!"

Grak was tittering and clapping his claws.

Mama Orc moved in but Gur's call spoiled the fun. "Oo Oaa!"

"A Tower rat!" translated Grik. Something was shuffling down the road.

"Don't think this is finished." Mama Orc pocketed her knife, then scowled at the newcomer, who'd stopped at a safe distance from her.

He looked like the creepy sort of minion Sauron would have hang around his house. His purple skin oozed Evil. He was hunched over so that his long thin nose nearly scraped the ground. Yet for an Orc, he wore decent clothes: a prickly black robe embroidered with a flaming eye, a stained ruffled collar and boxy steel shoes. Even his cuffs were ruffled, and he fussed over them as spoke.

"Regards from the Tower. I am Lurch, first of the Eye's messengers, high in his counsel, unpassed in his ranks, eater of manflesh…"

"Shut up. I know your vermin-eaten titles." Mama Orc scowled.

From her sons, sniggering and popping of finger joints.

"Then you know my words are mere rephrases of his. Just almost his, you could say." Lurch stood almost straight and sniffed.

Mama Orc filed her claws.

"Ah, so," Lurch fretted again over his dirty cuffs. "What slaves have you?"

The Orcess ticked off each with her filer. "A he-Horse, a she-Rat and two he-Shortlings."

"Excellent." He held his nose high, as though he had been the one to detain and lug us. "I will drive the slaves now. Aye, the Great Eye is happy. So happy He might give all you bread without maggots."

Yet Mama Orc did not look happy: she tapped her foot claw and chewed her filer to a toothpick. "Listen, troll-filth, these prisoners are _mine. _You won't have them to take the reward. I know how it is you came to be the Tower's emissary and it weren't through none of your own sweat. _Me n' m y boys _did all the carrying and feeding and kicking of these prisoners and _we're_ taking them to the Eye."

"But my orders come from his Mouthiness and his from his Eyeness." Lurch's ruffles wilted before Mama Orc's mass.

She'd by now traded the filer for her knife and rattled it at the emissary. "Then you never found us. And we went all the way to the Tower without having met. And so we didn't know the orders. Did we boys?"

"But…" Lurch scratched his pipe-long nose. "But we did meet."

"Says you?" And Mama Orc ran him through.

Snarl sniggered. "Good un, ma!"

"Shut up," she snarled.

"Ma! _Ma_!" Gutbag hopped on his leg. "There's more of the Tower rats coming."

"Stop hoppin' and get off the road! There's other ways to reach the Tower… and what awaits us. Promotion." Her sons looked back at her blankly, then slowly, formed smirks. "Yes, we'll be sitting high in the Tower, boys – someone'll have to replace this dirt." She kicked Lurch behind a rock and twisted Grik's ear. "Now get these prisoners moving!"

"But if they got a Wraith with 'em, Ma, we'll be in for it if they catch us…" Snarl broke off at her iron-melting look.

Gur was trying on Lurch's ruffled collar. Mama Orc snatched it and stomped it.

"We didn't meet no emissary. Got that? All these other maggots will be after us, trying to spoil the prisoners. We aren't to be seen. Won't matter how it's done – the Eye will reward the ones who deliver them in whole pieces. Right, Gur?"

"Ehaa," said Gur. She turned and his eyes swelled with loathing. Or allergies, possibly.

It was onward again. Now the shadow of Barad-dûr was becoming unpleasantly close. I ought to say that was good. The alternative was being in that red Spotlight.

Mama Orc weaved us around the road. Whenever something passed she hid us under whatever – noxious fungus, rocks, thorns. The Orcs could find niches like roaches. I figured they knew Mordor better than Mr. Lidless Eye himself, for all his decades of staring at it.

Hours later a great cloud of black dust puffed ahead of us, what must have been from the feet of dozens of evil minions. Mama Orc swerved us to the right. I opened one eye; we were headed smack-dab into a herd of trolls. I held my breath. We filed along, around their legs. And they never moved. Not a twitch, not a grunt. But after Snarl and Frodo sat down on one's foot and started dealing cards it hit me. _Great Ego of Fëanor._ These trolls were all stone. It was a frozen army. Hey… I could breathe! That fresh Mordor air.

This was better than any art exhibit. Thoroughly enjoying myself, I studied the trolls' grotesque features: sad, gaping and stupid. They held aloft broad tattered objects like the frames of umbrellas. Some of their faces peaked out from the umbrellas, mouths forever hanging open, staring up dumbly into the wide sky. A failed test for a day-resilient troll army, perhaps.

Mama Orc called a halt just as I was getting an interesting view of a _David _troll_-_double. Gutbag dumped me. I felt prickles in my feet and I raised a paw to my nose. Why, the bonds had broken! I'd fallen on them one too many times. I wiggled each toe one by one, wincing at the pins-n-needles. Now, when Gutbag wasn't looking I could just tiptoe away…

"Maaa! The rat's rope won't knot." Gutbag took their frayed ends and tried to stick them back together.

"Get a new one!"

"There isn't new ones!" A meaningful look at Frodo.

"Use this!" said Mama Orc. A chain rattled. Nasty clampers locked around my middle. "I've seen them ground rats burrowing into dirt. Keep it high, Gutbag."

So Gutbag hung me on the finger of a troll who was cupping out his hand, studying it stupidly, as though curious why it could not move.

This was Misery. I wiggled to get into a better dangling position. The manacle was loose, oh so slightly. My fur crackled against the iron. I was hungry and thirsty. The air was so dry you could shave it for sawdust; I'd changed my mind about Mordor atmosphere. Right below sat Gutbag, touching his nose wistfully. He sighed. And I had a plan C. It depended on two things. I bent my tail into view. My watch was still strapped on it… but did it work? Please… it was 5:34. And tick. 5:35. I pressed it and it glowed faint green.

Perfect. I rubbed my fur on the manacle, heard the crackling of charge, smelt the ozone.

"Stop shaking!" Gutbag said. He gaped at the glowing watch just as the light faded.

"What's that?" He glanced over his shoulder at his not-alert siblings. "I've heard stories. The Weapon the Great Eye must have. Suppose I took it to him meself. Suppose I took it for meself."

_Well, go ahead. Think of the power. Think of your nose. Let me free and all will be yours._

"What're you doing?" Snarl crawled up. Oh bother. There goes the script.

"I ain't doing anything."

"You're thieving, ain't you, you maggot?"

"Hush up! I wasn't. And if I was, I might share it."

"Share what?" Snarl's voice was a rough whisper.

Gutbag tapped my watch. The glow popped on. Gutbag examined his finger in awe.

"Whacha done?" Snarl yelped quietly. They both crowded around the small face, then jumped back as the glow died. Snarl's hands trembled. "Don't tell anyone what you done. Don't tell anyone._ He_ will know. We'll be maggot-fodder. Stay away from it."

Gutbag shakily scratched the sweat off his formless face, which was pinched, as though he were ready to cry. "I didn't mean it – I won't tell!"

"Who?" said Grik. He winced over Snarl's shoulder with his rock-eye.

Snarl walloped him in his good eye. Grik fell over. Then Snarl seized Gutbag by his ear. "YOU. I'll cut out your tongue. Then _you _can't tell."

Gutbag howled and jerked his foot. Snarl flew eight, maybe ten feet. Gutbag fell on his back. Mama Orc stomped over, brutally swinging her arms as if she were powerwalking. "What is this! What IS this?" She swelled twice her normal size as she surveyed the scene. "Why! Why can't you maggots keep quiet! Why!" She looked at me. I tried to smile.

"You…" Her face came too close; the five warts magnified to full roundness. I swallowed and touched the bridge of her nose. At contact: an electric zap. "OWE." Her claws moved in. "You little RAT!" She strangled air. I'd already slipped from the manacle and was running toward Frodo.

A pair of mismatched feet fell from the sky. I looked up into the cavernous nostril-holes of Grak. He grinned and crushed his foot on my head, crushing, crushing... and then was gone. I saw a flash of hooves and bags. Bill! He must have been waiting for the opportunity.

Mama Orc stomped in place and pointed to her last remaining son. "Do something!" Spit flew from her fangs. Gur sat on a thick troll arm, swinging his feet. If he had lips, I'd say he was smirking. The Orcess shrieked in disgust and marched my way. The ground shook. Time to go!

The other Orcs stirred. I looked around for Bill. He was bearing Sam away by the shirt. I didn't see Frodo. I noticed Mama Orc was close enough to eat me so I took off. Bill-plus-Sam was sprinting far ahead. Mama Orc hollered like a bull, a sound so long and piercing, she ought to try out for a Nazgûl.

Her sons followed at our heels, but we'd had a head start, and they fell behind. Stone trolls stooped from every direction, and it took little time to become lost in the peculiar forest. The Orcs' wheezing grew fainter and fainter, till I could not even hear the echoes. I glanced around. I was alone.

I ran on, looping around great stone feet of too-many or not-any toes. I heard a voice and slunk toward it. Below a crouching troll was the familiar hulking shape of the pony. Sam leaned against a drum-sized knee, trying to gnaw off his binds. Suddenly I saw the glaring absence… Then I heard more voices… beyond the lumpy back of one troll there was Mama Orc and Snarl. They were sprinting toward the Tower. And on Snarl's back was Frodo.

My legs moved forward… but my tail was caught in Bill's teeth.

_Get off! Get off! They got Frodo! They got the flipin'-stinkin' Ring!_ Bill took a thwack. I lollopped on and realized this was stupid. I paused, turned. Saw Grik and Grak winding through thicket of stone legs toward Sam and Bill. They hadn't seen each other yet.

The choice was painfully clear. It was me or Bill.

I cartwheeled into Grik and Grak's view. _Come get this rat flesh!_

It took several somersaults before they even noticed. Then they pinched and pushed each other to get at me first. I sped from Bill and Sam. I looked behind and laughed. The Orcs had gotten tangled together. I looked up and saw a Nazgûl skulking in Bill's direction. I skidded to a halt. And my face smacked into a boulder.


	11. Where Evil Dwells

**Chapter 11: Where Evil Dwells**

No Captain's Log. You don't dream here, or if you do you don't know it. What is the difference between the nightmares and the hideous reality? Thoughts so black you slip in and out of conscious thought. The room so dark there is no time. So dark the room might have been nothing. The black felt like a palpable thing, an embodiment of fear.

So how long was I lying here? Curious I was not hanging by a spiked manacle. Maybe the floor was for intimidation.

What would happen now? Torture? And more torture? Torture until my body's shattered and my mind's a matrix of broken memory? I felt the hot drops slide through my eyelids. My nose was running, dripping onto the floor. I couldn't summon the energy to dry it. Bother.

But why keep me here? Till I just die? He had Frodo. What more did he need? Bill and Sam… they might be in the next cell over, in this horrible black room even, for all I knew.

Most important question: will captivity in Barad-dûr ruin my chances for a scholarship?

Someone was in the blackness. No, maybe he'd been there all along. Sauron. The suddenness of his voice was as horrible as when, in the middle of the night, you switch on the kitchen's disposer instead of the light.

His voice was not really words. It was the feeling of his horrible mind, extended beyond the natural barriers of the self. I saw his thoughts in my head. I tried to think about peanut butter and washing machines, to confound his medieval imagination, but he swept it away like a flea down a drain.

_Your friend is dead_, his thoughts pulsated. _He made a mistake – he told me nothing. Will you make the same? _

But! Frodo… dead? How couldn't Sauron have the Ring? Hadn't he looked up Frodo's nose? Was he just playing with me? I must act stupid. The fate of everything hangs in balance.

_I'll never talk. Nevah!_ I imagined myself sitting mute, nose stuck up as red-hot pokers prodded my paws. First mistake. I no sooner conjured up the images than I felt pokers in my head. And I still could not see him. Just that pulsing darkness.

_They who sent you… did they think… You could match my power. _Hottest poker yet. Quite abruptly it went cold. It was like he'd gasped.

_I know what you are._ Poke. _You are no Maia, not as the fool believed. How disappointing. You're nothing. Nothing I cannot. _The poker twisted._ Break…_ He gave me images of crumpled cities.

… _Break you like the other fools… _Saw Frodo and Gandalf bloody and ragged, hanging from spikes. Saw a white city burning, great plains of charcoal, armies dead. …_All dead. Because they resisted. But those who obey…_ Saw Isengard prim and jolly_. …I grant life._

_Where is this thing which I desire? Why send a pathetic girl, an idiot halfling and a fool wizard to spy on me? _

My mind wasn't so scrambled that I couldn't count. Relief warmed my organs like coffee. Bill and Sam cannot have been caught! He didn't have a clue they were out there! Frodo must have been too dysfunctional to reveal it and of course Mama Orc would not have been stupid enough to tell Sauron two high-priority prisoners had escaped her.

But I couldn't let him know that! I squeezed out the faces of Sam and Bill with a melody I'd had stuck in my head for years. _The Camptown ladies sing this song…_ mind-poker evaporated. That was too easy.

I didn't relax, strained my ears for a clue of what he was doing. I soon heard it, a faint echo. Then it swelled. Louder and louder. Then agony. My mind was stung by a thousand wasps. He'd turned it against me; the music wasn't playing to me. _I_ was the music. **THE CAMPTOWN RACETRACK'S FIVE MILES LONG…**

_NOOOOO! MAKE IT STOP!_

I couldn't believe I was begging for mercy. The pain was bursting from my every pore, like I was slowly exploding.

From a place beyond, a lightbulb hit me – think about something else. Something dumb. _Freaky minions with black cloaks. How original. Taking over the world? Like that's never been tried before. And I'll even bet you're my father._

**GOIN' TO RUN ALL NIGHT…** Not working. **I BET MY MONEY ON A BOBTAILED NAG…**

_Oh, by the Treadmill of Tulkas! _The music wavered. I opened my eyes. Was it just me, or had the black quivered? "Nienna," I chirped.

**Doo-dah daaay…** Stephen Foster sputtered and died.

"Mandos," I chirped again. "Aulë!" The blackness parted. I saw Sauron now – an actual form. Maybe a man. Only horrible.

Suddenly he had my throat. Fun fact: he really does have only four fingers. "Ya-vanna," I gasped. "Oromë! MANWË!" His hold lessoned, but it didn't matter. My lungs were almost flat. "ELBERETH!" I squeaked with my last strand of air: "Ulmo." His fingers released my throat. And he was gone.

I gave my neck a gentle poke. I was leaving before he came back.

A strip of lesser darkness turned out to be an open door. I waddled out of the cell into a curvy hall with doors haphazardly thrown along the wall. It felt like Anguish, if ever that feeling could be a place. I tried to swallow, but the spit stuck in my throat and I had a horrible moment of almost choking. I calmed down enough to gulp. Gotta go. I carefully plodded in the direction that seemed to be going down because some ground-loving instinct told me I was quite high.

A sound. I leapt six inches off the ground. It was a groan. And it had come from one of the doors. I set my head against the ground and peered into the crack between the floor and door.

The fellow in the cell was even dirtier than I remembered. His sagging eyes lifted toward the entrance. He knew I was there. I slid my webbed paw under the door and waved it around_. Live long and prosper!_

Gandalf recognized my bark. "The Valar's messenger."

Sigh.

I pushed in the door; there was no physical lock but I suspected it was usually kept shut with a dark mojo. Gandalf hung upside down from ankles, his robes splashed everywhere. (Oh yes, there were more robes under the robes, thank you.) The wizard was a far cry more alive than Sauron's documentary of doom suggested. I began to believe the Lord of Eyeballs been pulling my tail.

"It is wonderful to see a…" Here he fell off the wall. "Wonderful." He sat up, spat out some beard and adjusted his robes, which were many.

_I am wonderful_. I rubbed my paws. Prying manacles from a wizard's shoes isn't easy.

"I heard such a hubbub," he said.

_Hubbub?_

"I thought someone had flung down the ramparts of the Tower the way it was carrying on. I _should _have known." He chuckled. I wished he would consider chit-chatting someplace else.

"No need for haste. I won't be going anywhere for a time." He pointed to his legs. I winced, imagined the white-hot stabs and was happier than ever not to be him.

He rubbed his ankle. "There are many rumors flying about the Tower. He knows I hear them and hopes to drive me to despair… fires devouring Rohan, armies engulfing Gondor, great gatherings in Isengard. Tisn't good tidings, Odi."

I figured not.

"But there's more he might not have wished me to hear. There's a rumor… just a small one, mind… of victories on our side, maybe more than _he_ is letting on… they say they are led by a man whose sword hand is his left, and indeed his only hand. And not only that, but a great force in the west, some strange army of vegetables."

_Sounds like a fool's hope. _

Gandalf nodded. "Our friends may be up to something yet… and yet, otter, for naught. Perhaps you know. Of course _he _would have told you… He said he killed Frodo."

I froze.

Gandalf punched his fist. "But I know that is a lie. From my window I saw Frodo walk down the road the day before yesterday." He pointed to the 'window', a little crevice in the wall. "Sauron wanted me to reveal our errand, but of course I said nothing. Long did he question me. Yet he should have needed no answers after he found Frodo. That Sauron lets Frodo live worries me – not that I wish for his death, dear me, no." He coughed. "Do you know what this means, otter?"

I swallowed and shrugged. But I had a good guess and for once I didn't want to be right.

Gandalf moved in close. His voice wasn't even a whisper and I watched his lips move: "Do you have it?"

I shook my head fiercely.

His lips hardly even moved now: "Then where is it?"

I paused and nibbled my paw. This would have to be delicate. Gandalf waited in wide-eyed rapture. I stood two-legged, pat my belly, then cupped my paw, swinging it up and down in a digging motion. Then I went onto all fours and galloped around his feet and made what I hoped were passable whinnies.

Gandalf nodded and nodded. "Well, perhaps it would be best to discuss this elsewhere."

I growled. _Now is the perfect time._ I had a plan and the whole world would be doomed if Gandalf didn't get it.

_Listen, foohl. You gotta wreak havoc as far from Mt. Doom as possible. Make it look like you got important business far, far away. Sauron's nose will gravitate toward you. If you stay here he'll find the Ring, with you and your unwitting meddlesomeness. I mean this in the best possible way. Do what it takes even if it means Frodo get killed – he's expendable, let's not kid ourselves. Sauron'll only keep him around as long as he thinks Frodo will lead him to something important. _

Gandalf's lips were parted. A fell odor filled the air. I sunk my teeth into his ankle.

He leaped, nearly smacking against the orange fungus on the ceiling. "Very well! I think we should leave. But first…" I looked back, already out the door. "I must have my gear. My staff, if it can be found. He took them from me. Taunted me. Brought it just out of reach… the jeering… But nay, we shall not speak of such things here."

I rolled my eyes. _You poor baby._ I waddled after him.

"It's not far." The wizard limped ahead. "Just a few doorways down." It was actually twenty-six few doorways down. The time seemed to stretch hours. Every second I thought a Nazgûl would pop through one of the closed doors, a newspaper under his arm. Maybe I would have preferred an encounter. It was the stillness, the utter lack of life that was terrible. Perhaps in his tower Sauron policed more with his fierce will than his dim-witted thugs. I supposed, too, his more evil minions could be attending to not-nice tasks in the West.

Gandalf found his room with a soft "aha". For a second I thought we'd walked into a WalMart. Shelves, shelves, and more shelves, each labeled with an inscription in Black Speech. Stashed in them were items of every size, shape and smell. Must have been Sauron's collection of artifacts that did not belong to him.

Gandalf sidled over to a shelf cataloged with a funky rune which might have been G for Gandalf or F for Fool Wizard; I couldn't tell. His knobby staff was there, along with his Elven cloak, a few hand-sized firecrackers and a map that was covered with a crust that I guessed was snot. There was, however, a glaring absence among Gandalf's belongings: his Miruvor. Just assuming that Sauron does not have a taste for Elvish whiskey, I now had a theory why Frodo was über-tipsy on our little jaunt with the Orcs.

We stepped back into the hall, and almost as soon heard a footstep. We looked at each other, silent screams reflecting in our eyes, and jogged down the hall away from the sound. That did not lose it. The shifting and groaning only grew louder. I thought about slavering werewolves, perspiring vampires, oozing spiders… And would you know it, the hall came to a dead end. The shuffling footfalls came closer.

"Door!" said Gandalf, and yanked at the handle of what could more accurately be called a gate. It opened with surprising ease. We slipped inside and it shut with a quiet snap.

We panted in a closet-sized chamber and – joy – another door barred the way. This one too was massive. Grim runes surrounded it, making me think of the 'don't leave child unattended' warning-doodles on shopping carts. Three club-sized bolts locked it. I think Gandalf was trying to read the runes. He stared at them, felt them, as though trying to mind-meld with them. He finally shrugged and opened the three bolts.

The doorway widened. Stench slapped our faces.

"Excellent!" The wizard rubbed his beard and entered.

_Is that a joke? _I followed, hunched at his heels.

Bones cracked under the wizard's boots. I tripped over them, looked around the wizard's shoes. Harnessed to the walls were six huge, featherless, reeking – REEKING, let me repeat – birds. They roared and rattled their chains. The hooks that anchored in the chains creaked in the walls, puffing out dust, seeming quite ready to burst out.

"Harmless, I'm sure," said Gandalf, patting one on the spot its nose should have been. I doubted the Istar noticed how another tried to take a bite out of his back, stopped by a mere six inches of its chain. "It's the fell mood of their masters they reflect."

He whirled around. "Choose your steed, Odi." I stared as he hacked off their chains with his staff one by one. They seemed too absorbed in their new ability to stretch their necks to consider eating us. For the moment.

Gandalf broke the last chain, smiling, pleased as ever with himself. "That will disable the Wraiths. And Sauron will not know which way to look. They'll find the search difficult." He gripped the harness of a plump fell beast. "You do know the whereabouts of IT, am I correct?"

_Yeah, yeah._ I nodded.

"Very good. You find IT and I'll keep the Eye distracted."

I grinned. Finally a plan: Find Frodo and kick his arse before he finds Sam and Bill.

After a quick inspection of the fell beasts, I picked the smallest. It was staring ahead, blinking tiny stupid eyes; in fact, the only one not teething on its neighbors. I approached it on tiptoes and it glared razorblades. This was not my favorite of ideas. I clawed the stirrup, hoisted up, slipped and hung from my middle.

"Wait!" Gandalf hobbled over again. I fell from the stirrup.

The wizard flung back his sleeve and rubbed one finger in dramatic slowness. . "This he never took, though he tried. Given to me by the Shipwright, long, long ago. Your need is greater now."

He gripped something shiny between two fingertips.

_No…_ I waved a modest paw. _No… Ok!_

He placed it in my paw. Narya's warmth enveloped me; it was like being filled with chewy fudge right out of the oven. The strength! Why, I could blow out The Eye like a birthday candle. One wee problem – the ring would not fit over the webbed toes. I pondered this for a moment and hung it over my right ear.

My attention returned to Gandalf. He looked even older, more hunched. _Greyer_ best describes it.

We both realized Something was banging at the door. Now would be a good time to shut up and leave. I gingerly sat in the stirrup, reached for the saddle. Gandalf had his beast's reins about his arm as he strained on a lever. He stumbled forward as the lever gave way.

The ceiling opened. The beasts exploded into the sky. They flipped, swooped, spun to every point of the compass. I dug my four sets of claws into the saddle. I saw Gandalf clutching his staff and spurring his slow, fat beast, which made a sharp U turn that could not have turned out good. I shut my eyes and felt with one paw for the reins.

The cold wind blasted away the sour reek of the fell beast eerie. I opened my eyes. My bird was hovering over the Tower, as though it were just soaking in the romantic view. I flicked the reins.

_Ya mule, ya!_

It wailed like police siren and plummeted toward the rocks of Gorgoroth. I fell back, my paws caught in the reins and I dangled from its neck. I watched the boulders on the ashy ground became more and more defined.

_Woa mule, woooa mule!_

**

* * *

**

_A/N: Sprinting around the Uni and absorbing episodes of Star Trek has put a dent in my spare time. But hey, I have cookies. Platefuls to everyone for sticking around!_

_And no, I have nothing against Foster. I really do enjoy that song – in moderation. ^_^_


	12. Not With a Bang but a Whimper

**Chapter 12: Not With a Bang but a Whimper**

I've had several episodes of Extreme Fear in my life. Like when I must walk over a rusty drain in a parking lot – it could break right me! I could drop my glasses! I could become trapped in the sewer kingdom forever!

Anyway, that's nothing compared to free falling from a Fell-beast .

Tears streamed from my eyes. The wind was sharp as butcher knives. I could see little grains of dust of the ground. _This is the part I die..._ And the creature pulled up just an inch off three feet from the ground and landed. I detangled from the reins and fell. After dusting off my fur, I gave it my most milk-curdling glare. It scratched the dirt, bobbed its head, most chicken-like.

_Right. Good mule! Now let's go someplace less desolate. _

It turned and hissed. Full height was ten or twelve feet. I backed up slowly.

_Well I don't need you anyway! You just keep scratching dirt, ya greasy chicken._ _Yeah._

I turned, began walking, ignoring the guttural clucking behind me. Mount Doom was still a good jogging-length away over and up ashy, jagged rock. The Fell-beast 's wings might have made things easier. The only thing that kept me going, from collapsing into a sobbing fetal ball, was my mission.

It was as clear as bottled water – stop Frodo from leading Sauron to the Ring. Gandalf must've believed I had it hidden under a rock when he sent me off. His problem! I knew where the Ring really was. And if Frodo was going down the road to Mt. Doom… that was B-A-D. The Eyeball Lord wouldn't have let Frodo go if he didn't believe Frodo would cooperate in some way, that he would help him somehow, wittingly or unwittingly.

Sometimes as I stumbled along I saw a colored flash in the west. I took the near-stone and caught one in the lens. The firework formed words that said less than nice things about certain Dark Lords. Yet more than Gandalf's performance was going on. I saw no Orcs, trolls or other minions. But I heard trumpets, sounds like thunder, somewhere, I couldn't pin it down. Something was happening and I was running out of time.

After hours and hours and hours I was getting grumpy. My paws swelled and blistered. But I didn't dare take a break – I didn't have food or water anyway.

_Get this over with…it's like a calculus test… just 'er done… worry about life's necessities later._

I tripped and didn't move. This dirt sure smelled familiar. Like – like Hobbit! I backed up. Footprints! Hobbit tracks! This was it! They were fresh, the black dirt still loose and fine around the edges.

I looked up. Why, I'd been going uphill. I felt giddy. It wasn't just that this was Mount Doom at last – I'd always had a fascination for volcanoes. Call it morbid, but I'd always wanted to have a front-row seat to an eruption. I'd read books on Mts Saint Helens and Vesuvius over and over till I could recite every ashy detail.

But up close this volcano wasn't all that impressive. A disappointing lack of action. Absolutely no drama. Just some nasty black rock that went up and up, something that I'd have to climb.

_Left. Right. Left. Right. Man, this stinks. I want a taco. Stop thinking. Right. Lef- no, wrong. Left. Right. Better. _The footprints were getting cleaner…

"Odi?"

_AAARGH!_

It was Sam's voice. And that meant Bill was somewhere… he'd look at my blistered paws, his brown eyes would mist over and such pity would he feel… Wait, then I must've beat Frodo here. I'd won!

"Odi!" Sam was whispering, I finally took note, and my heart skipped a beat – I smelt a stench I had wished never again to whiff. Sam gave up, shouted – "Run!"

Well, that was a warning two seconds too late.

"GET THE RAT!"

"I got the rat, Ma!" A sweaty claw seized my tail and hung me upside-down.

"I got the shortling!" Snarl dived at Sam.

"I got 'em first!" Grik and Grak pulled the Hobbit by both arms till Sam turned blue.

"Don't tear 'im," said Mama Orc.

I searched the lopsided landscape. Where was Bill? They didn't _eat_ Bill, did they?

The Orcs hopped in place and slapped each others' claws like a creepy game of patty-cake.

Mama Orc threw rocks at them. "Let's move, maggots!"

"Yes, Ma."

Suddenly Gur cried, "Ee iii!"

Grik translated. "The Eye's lookin' right at us!" He pointed. His brothers turned pale shades of green.

"Let Him look." Mama Orc stood straight and slapped a hideous grin on her warty face.

Drat and drat again. The crimson searchlight really was shifting around the mountain.

I still hung from my tail, and the near-stone bumped my nose. Idea! I pulled the stone from its bag and held it over the Eye, focusing the red light over Mama Orc's foot. It began to sizzle and pop. She shrieked and dropped her pose. I aimed the beam at Grik and Grak, Snarl and Gur, and finally at Gutbag's toes. ZAP! ZAP! ZAP! This was so cool – just like Star Trek!

They all writhed on the basalt. Hehe. Suddenly the beam faded and went out. _What the-_ I looked around. The Eye had turned away, to the plains. And the Orcs began standing up and _glaring._ Double-drat.

Mama Orc extended her claws. I winced. Then very curiously, her eyes rolled up and she fell sideways. And one after the other, her sons went down. Sam stood tall above their limp bodies, frying pan in hand.

_Success._ We shook hand-paw.

"Odi, you must go to the Crack – you got to – Mr. Frodo…"

I noticed for the first time he was wobbling on his legs. He sat down, took a deep breath.

_Yeah, Frodo, whatever. Where's Bill? _

Then I almost had my third heart-attack that day. Off to our right, I heard yet another all-too-familiar voice, "FOR FRODO!" And a chorus of other familiar tones chimed in, blending to produce a continuous battle cry that sounded like "AAAAA!"

I left Sam to himself. This couldn't really be real! I ran over to the voices and stepped right into their path. They came to a tumbling halt and I was very nearly road-kill.

Their weapons were drawn and their capes billowed, as dramatic as you please. They gazed at me as open-mouthed as the day we met by the Ford. Oh yes, they were real.

"Odi," said Aragorn after setting his jaw back into its socket.

"Otter!" Gimli slapped his thigh.

"Inconceivable!" said Legolas.

_I love you, _said I.

The two Hobbits were quiet, twitching, till one exploded.

"She killed Frodo!" Merry pointed a stained sword.

My eye followed the blade up to its owner, and I had my first good look at them all. Wow. Merry and Pippin wore full armor– shining breastplates and helmets twice the size of their heads, and huge battle axes were swung on their backs. They were mini-Genghis Khans! The others had much the same getup – spiky armor, helmets with horns and such. Gimli wore an eyepatch. A perfect scar stretched across Legolas' perfect face. And Aragorn, even minus one arm, looked buffer than ever. They'd all been having fun without me.

Pippin turned to the others. "Yes! Don't you remember what Boromir said? That 'the red otter will herald the coming doom'?

"Or if she didn't kill him herself, she may as well have!" Merry snorted. "She led him to his death. Sauron said he was dead!"

_You'd believe a thesis student to the Professor of Lies? _

Sparks incinerated the air.

"Enough!" Aragorn held out his sword. "Now is not the time. We must destroy this thing…" He opened his palm. A tiny golden ring on a chain was wrapped around the hilt of Andúril.

WAIT JUST A MINUTE!

"This we seized from Sauron," said Aragorn, gazing into my eyes. "It cost many lives..."

"Tell her about the Troll revolt!" said Gimli. Aragorn did not.

"To make swift a long tale, the Tree-lord and the Ents broke down the Gate. Gandalf kept Sauron at bay and we surpassed his guards and came into the very vaults of Barad-dûr itself."

The others cheered and sobbed. Aragorn's face burned with sorrow and kingly pride. It was my turn for my jaw to drop.

_You morons! That Ring's a dud! Sauron let you take it… so you could lead him here… to us all together… to the real Ring… THIS IS A TRAP. _

I paused. I expected something horrible to happen as the realization bloomed. Everything was quiet, even the two Hobbits.

"What did she say?" muttered Gimli.

"I think she is praising our victory," said Aragorn.

"_Enough talk!_ This is for Frodo!" Pippin charged me. Just as Sam limped over and said STOP so soundly Pippin halted almost in midair.

"You're alive!" Gimli boomed.

"Are all the dead walking?" Legolas wagged his fair head.

Aragorn was getting better at controlling his astonishment. "Sam…"

Merry and Pippin ran at and embraced him. "We thought… that Odi… had made you disappear… put a spell on Frodo…"

"No! Frodo's alive! He…" and he was cut off by Pippin's loud wails. Legolas and Gimli looked mildly uncomfortable and I remembered that in this alternate world, they'd never gotten much a chance to hang out with Sam Gamgee.

Sam struggled for breath. "No, no, no! And that's not the Ring that you are holding, Strider! I can't explain it all… I found a Ring in a stream in Rivendell… I replaced it with the true one that afternoon."

Yeah, I knew it all along. Since Barad-dûr -ish.

"Frodo'd just hung it on his doorknob, you see. Then I left with Galdor… and… we planned to destroy it ourselves while you kept Him busy. Well, it wasn't _Galdor's _idea. Someone else's but he never really said who…"

Everyone nodded mechanically.

"And we were captured by Orcs and brought here into Mordor with Frodo and Odi. Bill and I escaped with the Ring. Frodo had the one from the stream." Sam rubbed his nose. "Sauron must have found it and let you take it. But Sauron let Frodo go… he must have known Frodo would seek out the real Ring… well, me and Bill."

"I wondered about Bill!" said Pippin.

"Where is it now!" Aragorn never looked so very… not tan.

"Oh, well, sir, Frodo indeed found us. He wasn't himself, you understand, so I don't blame him for what he did. He asked for the Ring and when I refused he shoved me a bit."

_Just a bit? _

"But I didn't have it anymore." Sam sighed. "I'd given it to Bill and he'd gone right as soon as I spotted Frodo coming at us…"

A minute off cue, a Nazgûl's screech exploded over our heads. BILL! I had to get to him before Frodo did… or the Nazgûl… or Sauron…

I tried to move, but two sets of feet squashed me between them. "We'll protect you!" Pippin flashed his sword.

"Don't you worry, Miss Otter," said Merry, grimacing at the Nazgûl as he fingered his oversized battle-axe.

I tried to breath. _Your guilt trip is touching, really touching, but I got things to do… _I gaped at their feet. Even their toes had armor!

Three Fell-beast s circled overhead. I felt the hobbits brace themselves. The beasts swooped lower and lower – you could almost smell them – and suddenly a fourth appeared. It rammed right into the other beasts. The Wraiths fell off, shrieking all the way down. The freed beasts flew in ecstatic loops and took off south with their liberator, from whose scrawniness I recognized as my chicken.

The Nazgûl rose from their craters, shook their fearsome fists at their steeds, and then turned their faceless hoods our way. They took a simultaneous step forward.

"ELENDIL!" roared Aragorn. "Stay or be slain!"

One Nazgûl –I called him Henry – laughed like crowbar raked across a chalkboard. He stepped ahead of his fellows.

Aragorn too put a foot forward. "I am heir of Isildur…"

Henry cut him off with another scraping chortle. "A King?" He doubled over, clutching his middle. "Would you stay me with words?" He sniffed at Aragorn's limp right sleeve and emitted another round of chortles. "Where is your sword?"

"Here," said Aragorn, whipping out his left arm – and Andúril entered Henry's chest and poked out his back.

Then Henry exploded. I can't describe the sound as anything except _WAAAAaaa… pop_.

The other two levitated back and put their heads together in council. But the shock wave sent of us non-Wraiths into the rocks. Aragorn recovered first. He lunged himself at the remaining Nazgûl. Legolas and Gimli sprung to their feet, followed by the Hobbits. I ran the opposite way, didn't look back. Judging from the hollow walloping sound of iron on cloth, they were kicking Wraith butt.

From my eye's corner, I thought I saw the Witchking riding up the mountain on a rhinoceros. Not my problem.

Now, this part of the climb was easier. Maybe because I was so close, or… maybe because of Narya.

The one detractor was the horrible smell. There's nothing romantic about the Essence of Volcano. It was swine rolled in rotten eggs on a holiday in a wet dump.

And for the sole purpose of displeasing me, the smell was all gushing from the Door. How could Sauron have stood it? I screwed my face up tight as I entered. Strange this place was still here at all. I supposed the whole volcano was laced with sorcery that kept it from flying to pieces. After over 3500 years –three-thousand-five-hundred, that's not a tiny number, like, Moses would be that old – this Crack o' Doom hadn't cracked or crumbled. The floor was polished to a black sheen. A metal cylinder with a curious resemblance to a trash can sat in a corner and the walls glowed with runes that looked fresh enough to have been etched that morning. They repeated over and over and I guessed they said 'Me Sauron'.

I listened to the echoes of my paws on those walls. The heat seemed to push my breath back in my lungs and hold it there. A pink haze bordered my vision and I thought of tacos with extra cheese. A geology prof told me once (from her very hard personal experience) that bad air makes you stupid. And an astronomy prof (again, hard experience) said that thin mountain air makes you really stupid. Up here I had the benefit of both bad and less air. I walked into a boulder.

_Silly rock!_ I sat on my tail and shook my head. The tunnel's walls and floor now were carved with fissures, glowing faint crimson. _Hehe, so these are the Cracks of Doom. Well, goodbye Boulder of Doom. _

"Hello Odi."

Did the U.N. install some Give An Otter A Heartattack Day?

I looked up. Frodo leaned arms-crossed against the corner of one of the wall fissures.

We eyed each other till that got boring. I turned to the boulder and tried to bang the stupid out of my head but I think that made it worse. I looked back up and two Frodos tilted their heads. "Hello Bill."

I blinked and two ponies become one. Bill came fully out of a shadowy tunnel. Frodo was between him and the way to me and the Crack.

"I knew you'd come out eventually," said Frodo. Bill flicked his ear. "Give it to me. I'm the hero. I'm saving the world. Me."

Bill moved his lips. Something shot from his mouth. It hurled right at me. My legs were too short for catching, so I reared up my long neck and caught it in my teeth. I fell back onto the floor and stumbled. The thing in my teeth jarred into the back of my mouth and I swallowed.

Bother.

Something round and hard made its way down my esophagus.

Then the whole tunnel went cold like a freezer had been opened wide. Frodo and Bill looked toward the entrance and slunk back into the wall. I didn't need his voice to tell me who it was.

Sauron strode in. His every footstep was a hallow thud that reverberated through the whole mountain and his huge armor clanked like a drumbeat. He stopped. He was so tall, he seemed to reach to the ceiling. Maybe it was an optical illusion. He seemed more like to combine with the shadows along the tunnel.

His head turned slowly to rest onto Bill, then Frodo, then past them, onto me. I sunk low onto the egg-reeking rock and pretended to be invisible.

Now I saw how it was. After Sauron left me in the Tower, he went to deal with Aragorn and company, and so hatched a new Plot of Impending Doom. He lured us all here to kill us with one quick stroke – picking us off in a distant battle would not have been enough. The sicko'd rather have us all watch him take the Ring.

Sauron extended his nine-fingered hand. "Excellent, Baggins. Your reward will be great… now, give it to me."

Frodo didn't even give him a glance. "See Odi, I had to let the Orcs take me. I wanted a talk with Sauron. And we came to an agreement." He nodded to the power-thirsty Maia. "That I would find it. Then that he'd let us remain happy to the end of our days and that those will be extraordinarily long.

_Stupid! You can't appease evil! _I flapped my paws. His eyes shined, filled to the brim with self-applause.

"FRODO! TOSS IT INTO THE FIRE… Oh…" Sam's voice. Then Gimli's muffled grunt cutting into Legolas' into Aragorn's and so on down the line. I heard even Gandalf's 'ooopha'.

Sauron creaked around. And he laughed, so chilling it felt like my bones were shattering.

"None of you can stop me. All of you will die here. And I will have what is mine. You will be first, Halfling."

Frodo picked a hangnail.

"You're mistaken!" Pippin shouted. "Odi's right there! She'll stop you! She's a powerful spirit!"

So much for my sneak-away plan. Sauron glared daggers at me, then turned back to the entrance.

"Fools! This is no Maia – just a miserable mortal in beast form."

Why deny it? I waved.

"That's interesting," said Frodo.

Gandalf laughed. "And that's _precisely_ why you should fear, Sauron. You underestimate the power of the very smallest."

Such insults.I had had a growth spurt just before the semester!

"Lies!" Sauron's armored muscles flexed. "Only in their most desperate hour would they send women in the form of rats."

Gandalf pointed a finger. "Tis you who lie, Sauron. You well know the Valar do not take such matters lightly. Mark the Lady Elwing…" And yadayada.

It when on and on, back and forth. Sauron would say something about himself and Gandalf would contradict him with some historical reference, whether relevant or not. Hey! Could it be that Gandalf was trying to buy us time? And here I was, just tapping my claws. Maybe that was why Legolas and Gimli were twirling their arms so suggestively. They knew Frodo did not have it – but Sauron didn't know that.

I took baby steps in reverse. Sauron's back was turned. He had seized one of Frodo's feet and was shaking him out. Gandalf lectured still on.

"Where you going, Odi?" said Frodo. Sauron dropped him, sniffed.

"SHE has it!"

He flung a bolt fire… Bill appeared over top of me and I shut my eyes… at the same time I felt a surge of energy from my ear… there was a BOOM. I looked up. The air was fried, but we weren't. Only my ear felt warm – Narya had absorbed the fire.

Bill got up and shook his mane. Sauron stared, the others stared. This was no good. They'd all be blasted in the crossfire, simple and self-sacrificing as they were. I spun about and ran. Behind was an explosion of yelling, squeaking, and clanging. Dummies – trying to hold him off.

The Crack smoldered straight ahead. I ran… but something slowed me. I felt so… heavy… tired…

I sat down. Yells echoed through the tunnel. Why'd they have to be heroes? If I had things my way, we'd never have needed to die here. We'd be in Rivendell with hot Elves, and I'd be studying circuit diagrams and eating Hershey Kisses. I'd have attached the Ring to a ballistic missile and blasted it to Mordor. Bebother the bureaucracies and politics! If I were Czarina of the Earth, everything would be right…

…_A giant otter statue carved with a Spock face rises high over a green field. Space craft are parked beside it. Multitudes of cheering Elves, dwarves, Klingons, hobbits and unicorns fill the field, stretching from the Fangorn post office to the Pizza Hut at Osgiliath. _

"_Czarina! Czarina!"_

_In the very front, Captain Kirk stands on Haldir and Celeborn's shoulders and waves his shirt. _

_I walk from the otter's mouth, my cape rippling, my boots clunking. My hair blows from strategically placed fans. Three Vulcan advisors follow at my heels. _

_My hand lifts. "Here's some hope n' change even you can believe in!" _

_Ear-rupturing applause. I point my finger. The Ring shimmers. A blade of energy flows from it, falls into the Black Land in the east. It goes boom. A nuclear power plant appears where Barad-dûr had stood moments before. _

"_Electricity for all!"_

_More cheering. I yawn. _

"_Bring me a taco." I wave at my Vulcans."Taco's rule."…_

Yes! YES! THE RING IS MI –

Something took a bite from my shoulder. _OWW! Bill?_ He lifted me in his teeth and plodded to the edge. He set me down and looked, expecting.

_It can't be like that! It ain't gonna come out for a good while and by then, it'll be too late for whole world. _

Really, my stomach bubbled like I had poured Jello powder down my throat, then topped it off with a glass of raw eggs and Tabasco sauce.

Bill waited. I sighed. I never did thank him, though he always had our backs. He had tried to stop me from going after Frodo in Barad-dûr. He had known that Frodo had not had the real Ring. There was much more than that… it was just… though he wasn't dashing and didn't wear a suit, and didn't have a manly mustache, I did like him.

He just stared at me, at the Crack and back at me. Suddenly his eyes widened and he whinnied. A shadow came over us… Sauron flung him. The pony crashed somewhere out of sight. Pasties splashed the ground like blood.

_You jerk! _I pounded Sauron's iron sneakers with my paws.

His other foot brushed me off. "Give it to me. Much power will be mine to give… and to you will I give your choice. Don't be a fool as those in the door yonder… broken against stone."

_Liar!_

The edge was so close that half my tail hung off.

He reached down.

"I _will _have it! I command it! Do you think you have more power over it than I, I who forged it, here in this very place?"

_Good point._ I glanced over my shoulder. The red glowy stuff was far down. I so very despise heights.

He was reaching for my throat. And then… he doubled over, grasping his leg. Frodo had kicked his shin.

"Don't pick on girls."

I heard Sauron's teeth grind. Beside the Dark Lord Frodo panted from his dash. His eyes were clear blue… almost normal. Maybe, after all, it was Ring-withdrawal that had made him crazy. But though heroic and nigh in-character the hobbit's attack had been, Sauron still blocked the way back from the edge. I gave Frodo a nod, and looked down again.

Well, every time I dream of falling off the stairs or the Alps, I wake up before hitting the bottom. If this doesn't wake me up, nothing will.

Sauron didn't even see it coming. All this time and he still hadn't imagined it was our master plan. He grabbed at my head and clutched only air. That's the last thing I saw, Sauron on his stomach, leaning over the edge as far as gravity would allow, his hand reaching.

I closed my eyes, my body felt so light.

Was this what it feels like to be beamed up…?

* * *

_A/N: My imprecise calculations say the amount of O2 at the Crack of Doom will be about 10% less than the amount at sea level. That's really not bad. Compare that to 55% at Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the even more oxygen-scarce Everest, whose percent I don't feel like figuring. :P_


	13. The Lord of Waters Wins a Wager

**Chapter 13: The Lord of Waters Wins a Wager**

"Five more ccs, that should do it. Nurse?"

"Here, doctor."

"You awake, Captain?"

"No."

"It was that Vulcan. He hit you over the head with a Tribble."

"He wouldn't!"

"He's been court-martialed. His execution will start…" McCoy paused, checked his pocket-watch. "In three minutes."

"WHAT! I gotta go!"

"Forget the stimulates, nurse, give me six ccs of sedative."

I was helpless against the six jabs in my arm.

"I don't know why you're so worried," whispered McCoy before my vision became filled with fuzzy pink smileys. "You're not even awake yet."

I lifted my arm to punch him. I rolled onto my face. It was plastered in something warm and grainy.

_Please tell me it's Saturday._

What an imbecilic dream. Poor Spocky! I rubbed my hand over my face and smoothed the… whiskers? It all hit like a shovel to the noggin. Frodo… Ring… Sauron…

Aren't I dead? Fried to a crisp? Tossed into the recycling bin of life? I was afraid to open my eyes. But I did.

I was hammered by glaring sunlight. Salt stung my nose. Waves whooshed forward and back in the sea. How did I end up on a beach? I was in Mordor a minute ago! Maybe the volcano chucked me this far…

I flexed my paws. No aches? The blisters were gone. I looked around. A white beach, palm trees, the blue sea. No buildings anywhere. I didn't even hear gulls. Where was Frodo, Bill and the others? Um, was that a whale that just floated into the sky? Nah.

I got up, began walking. It felt like no time and forever. The beach never seemed to have an end. The eerie empty sands reminded me of too many movies. Something shimmered ahead… a mirage? I stopped. It kept moving, toward me. No mirage. It was a man.

"_HO HO HO._" The booming laugh shook every grain of sand.

"You! I knew _it_. I kn_ew_ it," I hopped and pointed all my toes. "The whole time, just about."

The man was now less than two jumps away. "I'm pleased to hear it."

I bit my paw. "…You can understand me?"

"Obviously." Ulmo tilted his head. He was in the form of a very old man, all wrinkles, beard, and robes.

I fell into the sand, out of breath. "You know, I – I thought you'd be… more nautical."

"Hmm, how about this?"

On Ulmo's head appeared a gigantic conch shell. His ears expanded to resemble fins and his fingers took on a scaly, fishy look. He carried what resembled a fork the size of a streetlight pole.

"Eh." I _so-soed_ with my paw.

He studied me for a long minute. "You have questions?"

I hopped back to my feet. "No kiddin'! Where's everyone else? Are they all dead? Am I dead?"

"One thing at a time. You are obviously not dead."

" 'Kay."

"Second, they are where they're meant to be, but whether dead or alive, that depends on when you see them."

"Not following."

"You are not in Middle-earth anymore." Ulmo twirled his trident in his palms. "Therefore, it would depend at what point history you put yourself."

"Then I can't even say goodbye?"

"Did I say that?" He stuck the trident in the sand. "Would you like to see what's become of them?"

"Yes! Uh… Sir."

The trident hummed. An elliptical light, like a TV screen, buzzed and spread from its top. In the light I saw Frodo and Sam wearing aprons and wiping glass cases… Ulmo cleared his throat. "These two settle their differences and start a successful jewelers' business."

The picture hummed. A buff Merry and Pippin standing together, their shirts so full of military medals, the weight should have dragged them onto their faces. Said Ulmo: "They begin the first Shire National Guard."

Bzz. Aragorn playing one-armed patty-cake with a dozen dark-haired girls. "He becomes king, marries, and has many left-handed daughters."

Bzz. Drool! Legolas and Gimli posing before a banner of… an otter. "They begin an Elf and dwarf foreign exchange program, called Ottyssey."

My eye twitched. "I never said they were the most creative pair."

Bzz. Gandalf wearing an artsy hat and rubbing his nose with a gaudy feather pen. "Olórin retires and writes a twenty-volume memoir."

Bzz… and neatly brushed Bill, chomping hay. "He returns to the Shire as Prince of Ponies and lives a long, well-fed life. Satisfied?"

I sniffed at the faded screen. "Are you making this stuff up?"

Ulmo removed his trident, and closing his eyes, said silently, "No."

"Right." A growl escaped my chest. "But what was the point of all this! Why was I sent at all? It could have ended just fine without me."

"I sent you with good reason. However, I'll speak of that in a minute."

"Like Valinor-minutes?" I slapped my paw over my mouth. I wasn't used to saying things and having people understand it.

He didn't comment. His unfathomably old eyes bored into me and hot spikes prickled my face. I fiddled my toes. "Uh… uh… What about the Ring? I ate it!"

The Vala grinned. "Oh, it's gone."

"Gone?"

"Gone."

"But…"

His scaly brows raised. "Don't you trust my judgment?"

"Not really."

"Then understand it this way – you brought the Ring to the Fire, and that's as far as I needed you to go."

I made a sound like an out-of-tune radio.

Ulmo sighed and sat down on an empty tortoise shell. I looked at him and waited.

"It all began with a debate I waged with Círdan the Shipwright. In this Age we've little else to do. We went over the past and talked with heat about the vast mistakes of the Second Age. He charged me for not throttling Sauron following Númenor's fall. And I charged him for not filching the Ring from Isildur at Orodruin. Who was more responsible for the Third Age's mess? So to settle the debate… we made a wager."

"Ahhh?"

He smiled and it curled upward, unnervingly like the Grinch's grin. "Each of us would have a Ringbearer champion and assistant. Whichever set dropped their Ring into the Fire first would win. Círdan chose Sam and Galdor and I chose Frodo and you."

"Duh… uhh… ah?"

"Eh?" He held a shell to his ear like an earhorn.

"That's callous!"

"Hmm, well, no one was hurt…"

_Except for Boromir and Gollum and the Nazgûl…_ I made sure I was talking in my head this time.

"…And much was gained. You threw Mordor into chaos and Galdor dismantled Isengard. And you both gave Sauron a headache. Never liked 'im."

"What're you saying about Galdor? Didn't he die?" A tiny spark of joy burnt in my gut.

"Nay, he was very much alive when the servants of Saruman took him into Isengard. So much so, he took the impudent Maia captive and held him in his Tower. And in that time, he came into contact with the Ents of Fangorn. Galdor's family had in the ancient past been the first to teach them speech, and in the forest of Beleriand had been friends with the Tree-herders, dwelling side-by-side…"

"Oh, I see!" I clapped my paws. "He's the Tree Lord that assaulted the Black Gate. I'd thought Aragorn was talking about Treebeard." Could Galdor get any yummier? Hot and a prince among Ents to boot.

"Verily," said Ulmo gravely. "Through him the Ents were stirred into a wrath that both Sauron and Saruman grossly underestimated. Aragorn and his company with the aid of the Ents gathered all the Orc and Uruks of Rohan. Great fires spread through the plains, but the Ents had victory. Your friends in the Fellowship became generals of men and countless other races – their success spread so far even the most timid were stirred from the mountains and forests. They and the Ents came with a mighty host to counter the attacks in Gondor. You see why Sauron was miffed when you met him."

Suddenly I was struck by a vision of columns of Ents and heard a man singing "Pink Ents Parade…" I shook my head and shuddered. Ulmo watched me, still grinning fin ear-to-fin ear.

"You say all you've done all things, but aren't Valar _not _allowed to interfere with mortals' affairs?"

"Oh? Now who said I didn't have permission?"

How're ya supposed to argue with that? I racked my brains for something else. "And Galdor didn't know about this… wager?"

"No, that would have been an unfair advantage! After the Council he simply received orders from Círdan through gull-mail. Or may I say _G-mail_. HO HO HO!"

I rolled my eyes.

"Anyway, what you said about the Valar being forbidden to directly interfere with history is true. So once you were in Middle-earth I could not contact you _directly_."

I remembered all the creepy eyeballs I'd seen in puddles and I sighed. "You didn't by chance have anything to do with Frodo's… mental illness?"

"Well…" The Vala shifted his seat on the tortoise shell. "It was a number of factors. Though perhaps the sudden removal of the Morgul-blade had… side-effects."

"In other words, you tried to make your Ringbearer robust, and it backfired." Now I had him where I wanted him. I crossed my forelegs. "And why choose me? I don't even like water. And an _otter_ of all things fuzzy?"

"I had a wide selection, yet what stood you out was your curiosity. Your often irrational curiosity." He beamed liked that was an unsurpassable compliment.

"Huh! Then the whole 'adventure' with the Fellowship was a farce! And here I thought I was saving the world! All for your little game-thingy." I pouted best I could without lips.

"Do you regret the experience?"

I listened to the sea rolling in and out. "Oh, well, I… maybe… well."

He nodded, smiling. Blast, he was infuriating.

I slumped, just tired now. "Then all this, was it just a dream? In my head?"

"Just because it's in your head doesn't mean it's not real."

"Plagiarizer. That's from Harry Potter."

"Yet it is the truth. Or if that still disturbs you, you may say it is a vision of what might have been. With you gone, things will be as they were. Although precisely how things are _meant_ to be I cannot say."

That sparked a headache. I rubbed my temples. "Speaking of dreams, why have I been having all of these vivid ones of Star Trek?" That grinchy grin spread again. I groaned. "No… you're a Trekkie?"

When he didn't answer right away, I squealed. "Dude! Who's your favorite? I think Kirk's the most selfless captain ever, but he's got a major problem when it comes to females. Uhura's cool, I'll give her that. Sulu, Scotty and Chekhov are adorable. But Spock is irresistible – who wouldn't want him around the house?"

Ulmo coughed up a starfish and flung it into the water. "I favor Doctor McCoy."

Utter silence, except for the waves beating up the beach.

I closed my eyes. The splendid faces of Spock and Galdor marched across my eyelids and evaporated. Their remains gathered, forming into dark-eyed Bill. I couldn't believe I crushed on a pony. I'd had fur way too long. Still, I'd consider it… if Bill were a guy and I a not-otter, well…

"So." I looked up at the seaweed-smelling Vala. "How do I get home?"

He motioned for me and I approached the tortoise shell. Bending in, he whispered the instructions in my ear.

I fell backwards. "WHAT? That's so obvious. I never tried it!"

Ulmo's shoulders were shaking. He was just having the time of his life.

I brushed off my fur and turned to face him. "Well, I'm going now. Unless you have something else to reveal. Sir."

"Nay, that covers it."

I readied myself to leave, when a thought jolted through me. "Hey! Um, just one more question – are you my father?"

"No." He stood back and waved his webbed hand.

"Thank goodness." I closed my eyes and clicked my hindpaws three times.

_There's no place like home…_

The floor was hard and ice cold. My glasses pinched the side of my face.

What was the time? I turned my head to find my tail. Oh wait. I've got hands! And I'm tall.

"Ha, you're not dead!" said someone. "We al_most_ called 911."

"You alright?"

"Can you talk?"

I looked up. Faces surrounded me. Their owners' hands were texting. Several camera phones were flashing.

"Didn't I tell you? DIDN'T I?" The girl from across the table wagged her head.

"Need some water?"

I slapped the waterbottle from the poor fellow's hand. _Get that away from me!_ How can I even look at a toilet again without imagining Ulmo's eyes staring right back?

The lab instructor stood over. The hand holding his chalk twitched. "Ne-ver happened in my class. Ne-ver happened. You ok now, yeah? But we still have thirty minutes. I'll not dock off points unless you all look busy."

Laughter all around.

"… I …" My voice sounded like chalkdust. I deliberately rounded my lips for each word. "I feel fine."

They'd all already wandered back to their tables to poke their voltmeters.

I stood up, felt something tug at my neck. I reached and gripped a string, pulling up a soft black pouch – the near-stone. I clasped its weight for a small moment.

"I'll save this for next week's optics lab. Right now I need a taco."

* * *

**The End **

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_A/N: Thanks so much for reading! You've all been encouraging beyond words!_

_I'm very grateful to the reviewers for their input – the story took several changes in direction from their comments, and made the process that much more fun. Again thanks to Dúnedain Ranger of the North at for his challenge._

_It's been asked, but no, there's no spin-off planned. However – if anyone cares to take in the Orc family, have at it._

_Fresh Elf cookies with sprinkles! ^_^_


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